


An Anthem for Sheltered Bays

by joouheika



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: M/M, Manga Spoilers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-07-17
Updated: 2015-06-28
Packaged: 2017-12-20 10:46:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 79,912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/886355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/joouheika/pseuds/joouheika
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Upon waking it is not a requiem for drowned men Levi hears being sung though he ought to. [mermaid AU]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Levi had been on his way back to the island.

He’d been returning home from a former comrade’s wedding.

There'd been so many people in attendance even he had gone unnoticed (thankfully).

Hanji had been invited too but she’d been in the middle of another scientific breakthrough so couldn’t make it, she’d sent her best regards as well as made him make a bunch of promises he had no intention to keep (“You better tell me how Petra looked in her dress when you get back~!”) and an unorthodox gift that he’d pitched into the sea at the nearest convenience (for all their safety).

It’d been back on the mainland, in the city- this wedding.

Erwin had made it too.

He’d asked Levi how “retirement” was going.

Erwin was still serving the crown, just as he’d wanted and was quite the influential person.

It’d not been so long ago, they’d been in the militia together, fighting for the old king, fighting against the old king. The church having obtained too much power, crumbled under the weight of its responsibilities to a species too inclined to sin. The new queen who they bent the knee for, was a bastard child of the old blood this religion claimed to support. The new world they came to know under her rule was too kind in comparison to what Levi had known, and what many of them had known. The people loved her dearly. A goddess of victory. An angel bestowed to them in the form of a just ruler. You could not go one day through the city without hearing once, twice, tens of times the cry of “Long live the Queen! God bless the Queen! Historia!”

It was said and sung in the voice of the people, and reflected in their every action.

With these days of peace, with no battles to fight, he who had been feared and known as humanity’s strongest soldier- had no more use. So he spent his days in “retirement”, far away from the city where once the entire black market and mafias and gangs of old and new blood alike were under his control, far from the monarchy that deemed him a “hero” for his time on the battlefield, and far from those bloody battlefields where the only time he'd felt alive had been when he'd been taking the lives of others.

He spends his days now, out of the service- rotting, decaying- with the least likely person considering his stressful days of being in the service with her- Hanji Zoe- an esteemed (that was pushing it) scientist and soldier from his old squad who had discovered truths of this world claimed as heresy by the fallen religion. When they’d both been in the service she’d developed biological weapons that had in many ways helped them win the war.

He’d been returning back to this private island of Hanji’s; the island the Queen had given to her for her excellent service (and to further develop more potential weapons as well as serve as a private base for her enjoyment- all far from decent civilization- really it was for the safety of all) when a storm had hit, worse than the usual (storms Hanji found fascinating, but Hanji found many things both cruel and ugly of mother nature so very interesting) that he was sure the shitty boat he was on was going to capsize.

It fucking did.

And where he ended up… while this dinky island was too small for a large number of people to live, between him, Hanji and some of her fellow researchers and assistants- it is still massive.

Which is why Levi is terribly unfamiliar with the part of the island he’s ended up on, though it can’t be far from the where of it he is familiar with.

So this is the opposite unexplored end- unexplored to him that is. He should have surveyed the area better but he had spent a good deal of his time reading the old texts (now that he has time to read) Hanji had dug up gleefully from the dungeons of the church; you’d think since it’d been heresy they’d burn it- but it seemed old knowledge they’d thought long gone, technology long gone was not long gone only long hidden.

Levi’s whole body feels tired, like he’d been lifting something heavy over and over for a long period of time.

It’d been the ocean trying to drag him down.

His chest hurts, where water had once been in his lungs but at some point he’d coughed it all up.

But most of all, the most unacceptable matter was how there is fucking sand everywhere, dirt, what the fuck was that- seaweed- on him.

And beneath him- his head lies upon-

Bluish green and greenish blue, dark and light all at once, sharp and glittering under the bright sun, they flex and move beneath him as he moves as if whatever these scales belong to are living, and looking up with his vision focusing Levi sees- the same bluish green and greenish blue- in the pair of eyes curiously looking down upon him-

_A person._

Levi is quick. A speed that has saved his life many times on the battlefield as he swings his entire protesting being into motion, both his hands grip the wrists of whoever this is, his legs drawn with every intention to pin down the legs of this person when he realises-

This person does not have legs.

And the scales of before is of what this person- this thing does have-  _fins_.

Before he can open his mouth to speak, the creature below him does so. Bewildered. Its brow slick with sweat, its gaze on his legs that have come to press upon its battered tail- this creature-

“So you really do exist… humans.”

Levi slowly sits up but does not loosen his grip, he surveys his surroundings (he is on a beach- a cove, no sight of debris from the ship he’d been on is ashore which would mean he’d been taken far from the place of incident or it’d been washed away) before taking in the entire figure before him. Indeed it is the figure of a half man, half fish creature.

Or rather- half boy, half fish creature.

The portion that looks human looks to be of a young teen, and fuck he can’t tell the age of fish, but the beautiful scales of the fin that is the rest of this creature’s body are elegant and fit even despite its injuries, the worst of which is at the left upper side where a thick gash is, crusty and dark crimson. Levi has seen enough cuts to understand that it is of concern.

“I was about to accuse you of being the reason the boat I was on capsized, but given your state of being that would be crude.”

The mermaid… merman- merboy?

Tilts his head, brow slightly furrowed quizzically, it’s not he does not understand the words, it is he doesn’t understand the reason behind them.

Levi releases his grip given the lack of opposition. He leans back and touches lightly his fingers over the gash. The mermaid… boy flinches, his slender shoulders seizing up, the muscles of his stomach tense. Levi watches all of this, expression passive until his gaze once again meets the boy’s as it had before-

“Did you save me?” Levi asks.

The boy swallows, a small sharp breath that sounds too much like speech before actual speech.

“I did.”

Levi’s glare intimidates him.

“Why?”

This boy- this merboy-

“I’d never seen a human before. I was curious. It is as the tales Armin told me about say. You cannot breathe in water. A sea you cannot swim within hangs above you… and it is bright…”

He trails off dazed, as if his self here is dreaming- and he might as well be, the darkness of the deep sea to him is familiar but here even in the sunlight of a season turned near autumn is far too bright to him.

From his answer Levi knows, this boy had not seen any others.

The merboy’s gaze focuses into attention, as he sits up on his elbows, whole being struggling at having to move, given from his already injuries or the fact they’d been aggravated when Levi had pinned him earlier-

“Allow me to make up for my earlier actions,” Levi tells him as rises to his feet, he will forage in the forest and obtain the necessary ingredients for an adequate at this moment salve that will surely help relieve all the pain he has with and without intention- caused.

He is gone for some time, not sure what to make of the gaze that follows his movements on his departure and then his return. The answer to this is ‘pained’, and it is not physical. Wondering on his own possible physical injuries- after a brief self examination Levi finds none of the gashes, cuts and bruises the boy has on his own body. He wonders if the reason to this being his clothes shielded him or that creature… this half boy shielded him-

It is not with the pain of his injuries but the pain of failure that Levi has seen connected deeply to the word duty that the boy tells him-

“I’m very sorry.”

“About what?” Levi replies, without fail the creature flinches at his every touch but does not shy away from the salve that Levi isn’t entirely certain will do any good but hopes it won’t do more harm.

“S-shouldn’t you be tending to your own wounds first-”

“What are you talking you about?”

“Well… that is-”

“Please get to the point, or is this just the general manner of speech for your kind?”

“Ah? What? No, uhm- it’s just while I tried my best to get you back to the surface unscathed… in the process part of you…”

“Part of me?” Levi glances over himself, it doesn’t hurt to double check. Perhaps in delirium of a very critical wound he’d completely disregarded it as a means of survival. Denial. It has happened before.

He doesn’t see anything.

“What part of me is missing?”

The merboy gulps and hesitantly points to the so-called missing part.

“I thought you might like to keep it if you survived so I placed it over on that large rock over there.”

What Levi sees-

He lets out a sigh of relief.

His voice is not unkind, nor does it seek to scold.

What the merboy had pointed to is his mantle. He’d been wearing it when he’d gone up on dock to check the situation. It’d been raining heavily after all.

“Be at ease. That is not part of my body. I am not harmed.”

The boy looks upon him, thoroughly confused.

Levi isn’t sure words will do, so he does this-

“What that is- is an item called ‘clothing’ and they are detachable. We humans use them to shield ourselves from weather conditions and matters of temperature, as well as to differentiate ourselves and to hide indecency.”

He unbuttons his shirt and peeling it off-

The boy exhales loudly, surprise on every bit of his features.

“Differentiate?” he reasons, before glancing down at his tail- he is seated upright, “Like our tails? No one has the same shade… and some are not even fins…”

“Oh?”

“It’s not common but some of us have tentacles… Mikasa does… she’s partially from an old eastern tribe-”

“’Us’ being merpeople?”

“Yes!” the merboy says enthusiastically, “So you have heard of us?”

Levi nods as he puts his shirt back on, buttons it up- “That’s right. You mentioned you heard of humans from tales. It is quite the same here. You are from tales as well.”

The boy looks pleased.

Levi looks over the merboy’s body once more, having put a good deal of the salve on most of the wounds. It doesn’t appear (but it might just be in so little time) to be having negative effects but if it’s doing anything other than easing the sense of responsibility Levi has…

“So what will you do from now on?”

“Eh?”

Levi frowns.

“You obviously have a home and family to return to, is it far?”

The merboy… gulps…

The look of a child who’d snuck away from home to do morning chores in the evening and ended up not in the town over but a whole nation- ah-

“It is… very far. It’s actually rather cold here, is the human world always like this?”

Levi’s reply is negative.

“It’s almost autumn, it’s as I mentioned before. We have clothes to shield ourselves from such discomfort.”

“Autumn?”

Levi gives a brief explanation on seasons. The merboy’s mouth is gaping the entire time. While in the ocean it could be hot or cold typically there were no drastic changes like that of which Levi describes.

“Amazing… it must be very hard to live in the human world.”

Levi pauses over this comment, as it is said with an amount of admiration that borders naivety. Understandable yet- the merboy looks relievingly concerned.

“So it will only get colder... I think I will be well enough to swim home before then…” though time in months and years was also a concept like the seasons that they did not have in the sea, the merboy had his own conception of time that he is applying to his situation, trying his best to calm himself over his long list of recent impulses.

Levi watches all the while, coming to his own conclusions and makes a decision.

“If it’s alright with you I would like for you stay here until you are well. This place should not be dangerous.”

There aren’t many animals in the woods here and the animals that are here and dangerous would not come up to the sea.

What Levi is concerned about are the dangerous beasts that did not reside in the woods on the island but outside them.

If Hanji were to find-

“You.”

“Yes?”

Levi decides it’s not bad, this boy’s gaze.

“What is your name?”

The merboy hesitates, not with desire to not answer but too much desire to answer, and he seems more a young pup to please his new master than the feared and admired fairy tale creature mermaid.

“It’s Eren! Eren Yeager.”

Levi mulls this over, “You must be quite important to have a family name.”

Eren’s ears turn red, then his cheeks, slowly down his neck, it is very interesting.

Eren stutters- “N-no! We all have second names! Do you not in the human world?”

Levi stares directly into Eren’s gaze, wondering if where the red is there will be heat.

“We do not.”

Eren quiets, out of everything foreign to him about the human world this seems the most pressing and confusing. Even more so than the alarming topic of clothing.

“Then you are only called in one manner?”

Levi thinks this over.

“Most called me Corporal. It is my rank in the militia. It is a title of profession. I do have but one name- it is Levi. You may call me by it.”

Eren’s whole face and neck are deep red now and just as Levi has decided (didn’t a certain pair of shitty glasses say before you weren’t ever going to know unless you confirmed it yourself) to touch and see, Eren calls out far too loudly-

“Levi!”

And-

Levi cups Eren’s face, and taking Eren’s cheeks in between his fingers, pinches.

He pinches hard.

“Though I may not look my age I am surely your senior. Do they have no means of respecting your elders amongst your kind?”

“N-no sir! Er, that is we do so sir! Mr Levi- Sir Levi?”

Eren’s confusion seems to have no limitations, his expression as apologetic and expecting of punishment as when he’d pointed to Levi’s mantle thinking it some sort of limb.

It is hot, Eren’s flesh.

Levi sighs.

“It hurts… Corporal…”

Levi lets go of Eren’s face.

Eren rubs at his cheeks, massaging them when a more urgent pain comes to his attention. Around the gash, some scales had been barely hanging- having finished his light punishment Levi has noticed them once again- the salve dried on most of it- he reaches down and starts picking at those scales-

“Please stop!”

Eren’s whole body has seized up. Levi touching there is like peeling away skin, a lot of skin. Gross. He gathers Eren forth into his arms, to sit on his lap, watching Eren’s attention shift from pain to curiosity in more than little a minute.

Then Levi asks, regarding Eren’s distraction.

“I’d like to have some of your scales, if you’ll allow me.”

He is so full of shit.

He was totally just going to take the scales that are already coming off, but given that would not be unnoticed and they are still attached far stronger than they appear-

“Why?” Eren is asking, shifting, he’s never sat on a human lap before, legs are… thighs are-

Levi cannot say his actual reason so he says what he also thinks, though that is not nearly a good enough reason, merely a mutually existing one- “Because I think they are beautiful.”

Eren is trying to squirm out of his lap.

Levi won’t have it.

“T-that may be so but you can’t- it’ll-that sort of thing you’re not supposed to until you’re older and those are-”

Curious himself, Levi passes his hands over Eren’s hips over where human skin becomes those scales. Eren’s body will never relax at this point.

“Do you not want to? Even after you’ve already done so much for me.”

 _That and this are different!_ is what Eren’s gaze is practically screaming but what he says instead, suddenly determined, breathing steadied, his hands fisted in front of his rapidly beating heart- “I understand. Please do it as swiftly as possible.”

Levi holds Eren up in one crook of his arm, bringing the gash closer to him- so the salve wasn’t effective. Or had it made Eren more sensitive? He takes not one scale but six. Eren is in tears at this point, tears Levi feels on his neck. Eren’s hands confusedly grip on his clothing. Levi can feel his pained breaths against his neck as well as his soft mouth, drastically different from the sharp yet light scales of his tail. Come to think of it, the skin he’d touched at Eren’s hips had also been rather soft.

“It’s done.”

Eren draws back from him, quiet and tired, as Levi pats his head, fingers coming to comb through his hair, soothingly, a few strands of hair catching.

“How do you feel?”

“…I’m alright.”

Carrying Eren in his arms, he stands and walks over to the rock where his mantle is. He sets the merboy aside it before taking his mantle up, and dressing Eren in it.

“For you. For your scales.”

Eren is alarmed, never having touched a texture like this before. It is rough on his skin, surely. And something starts to burn low in Levi’s gut at the sight of Eren dressed under his mantle. Green suits him well.

“Didn’t you say it gets cold… that you humans need this to….”

“I will be alright. I have survived worse, in worse. You may use this for now.”

The day turned night air isn’t as cold as it could be and will be. Despite that, Levi is anything but cold. He goes to the sea to wash the blood off the scales he’d been given, pocketing them.

Returning before Eren to tell him.

“I live on this island. I will be returning to my house for the time being. I will come see you again so don’t wander far from here if you can.”

Levi has started to walk in the direction he deems most likely to bring him to clean running water (his hands smell of salt) the quickest when he turns back and orders- so used to it- “Be sure to take care of it.”

Eren nods, his shy smile still in Levi’s mind as Eren’s verbal response echoes in his breast, hollowing out the air from his lungs, it being much like how Eren had called his name before, only assured- “Yes sir!”

Weren’t sirens supposed to sing songs to bring you to your doom?

Eren has sung him no such song, not a one and yet Levi feels it.

That fate he’d escaped every time on the battlefield.

It rises about him, his feet, up his ankles, over his knees, to the top of his head and submerges him, drowning him.


	2. Chapter 2

It’s becoming difficult to leave the house when Hanji after polishing up her own work, will not give him a moment’s peace. Having come to allow her curiosity to run rampant at the most unusual matter of Levi requesting something of her and something within her  _favourite forte_  no less- Hanji wants to know every little detail.

What Levi had asked of her is this- he wanted her to investigate the genetic material of some dark hair (much like his own) and fish scales (according to Hanji and Levi has to admit he cannot refute what he’s seen with his own eyes) that has to belong to the prettiest fish there ever is (seriously Hanji has never seen scales like this before, all the fish around here are brown and black and none shine like this).

Wondering if Levi has gotten involved in some investigation while away in the city, or this is some last task given to him by someone on the ship that’d he’d barely survived home on (though she wasn’t surprised, if anyone is coming home alive and unscathed it’s Corporal Levi), Hanji is relentless in trying to find the truth.

Having done as he asked finally (it wasn’t hard) she concluded on the hair and scales she’d been given-

They were both of a different species.

But they also belonged to the same person?

Wait wait wait wait!!!!

How could this be?

Could it be Levi had met… had met a-

“It’s a mermaid! A mermaid! A real mermaid! When will you be taking me to see this little mermaid of yours Levi!”

Levi looks like he is suppressing a migraine. That is how he usually looks so she isn’t alarmed in the least. She knows how hard to push and when to shove, she also knows when to fuck off.

“That’s it isn’t it right, that’s also why you’ve been going out so often instead of hitting the library up isn’t it I’m right aren’t I-”

“Hanji.”

“Yeeeeeeeees~”

“What were your findings?”

Hanji gives him a long proper and very scientific explanation.

Levi heads to the library for the day.

Hanji calls to his back as he walks away- “Come on! Just for five minutes please! Let me meet this mermaid princess of yours! Don’t be selfish Levi!”

\--

The sea seems less loud with company.

Eren watches from a rock as Levi catches fish using a net.

“We also use things like that,” Eren had said, but he also said the sort of fish worth eating the most were ones that were big enough for you to catch and kill with your own bare hands.

So he is very impressed when Levi catches such large fish in the net anyway though they are not fish he’s familiar with eating (“They’re not very colourful here,”) he is thoroughly scolded when Levi in the middle of cleaning the fish is misunderstood as to having already started eating them. Eren’s face is smeared in blood and guts- blood and guts are everywhere, fucking everywhere when Levi sends him away with a kick or two to go wash and not do that ever again.

Eren is thoroughly confused on how humans eat fish, especially when Levi is throwing away the most nutritious parts (that he later saves for Eren), until Levi builds a fire, and shows him how to  _cook_  fish.

Eren is amazed, while there were some who steamed fish where he is from, it was very dangerous to do such a thing and is considered the activity of eccentrics. Levi holds off on explaining other means of cooking to Eren who burns himself on eating the roasted fish. He likes the heat of the fire, but doesn’t like how bright it is, so sits cautiously behind Levi the entire while it’s lit. It’s only a month later that he can directly sit before it without his human shield.

On various occasions instead of catching their food- Levi brings Eren food from the house. Levi learns of the unfamiliar food- Eren loves the sweetness of fruit, and vegetables only when they’re soft, he tolerates meat if it isn’t cut too thick and isn’t fond of bread if there is no soup, on that note liquids are curious to him- he eats everything obediently and with the same zeal as paupers would chocolate.

Petra had visited the island with her husband on their way back from their honey moon and she’d baked a chocolate marble cake (much like her wedding cake) for Hanji who’d not gone to the wedding. It was a short visit, pleasant.

When Levi had brought some cake to Eren he’d been fond of the spongy texture and delighted at the taste. Levi did not think it was bad, he does not mind sweets.

They go by like this, their days.

Levi brings food and items of “the human world” as Eren calls it and tells him of the city (not all stories entirely pleasant but Eren enjoys them all the same) while Eren in turn tells him of the sea, tropical waters and brightly coloured fish, marine life large and small totally unheard and seen of to even the most weathered fishermen. Speaks of his home and friends and family and what life is like for them. How they hunt and how they play, how they learn and how they live. Their life spans are similar to humans but their customs often bizarre.

Eren misses them, it shows on his face every time he speaks of them, and the only thing that outweighs his longing to see them again is his amazement and wonder at the human world.

The technologies and culture, the concept of science and rulers.

Are like legends, history of long ago.

One night when they are both looking at the stars, and Eren apologises because he likes to lie only halfway on the sand so his tail is in the water (and Levi very much does not and so sits a ways away on a rock he’s made decent to sit on) and though the water is much colder now, it still feels nice on his tail (which hasn’t healed very much at all Levi notes on every visit), it’s on the shore together they peer up into the sky- how Eren loves the sky- he says it is the saddest and most wondrous thing of all in the human world- for it cannot be reached.

It’s here at this point in time Levi asks something he has been mildly curious about.

“Can you sing?”

Eren shifts uncomfortably next to him.

“Mikasa is the most skilled. Annie has the best voice though and Jean is stupidly talented always showing off the jerk- especially in front of Reiner and Ber-”

“Eren I was asking if  _you_  could sing.”

“I-I can but… I’m not as good as all the others…”

“Is that so. Perhaps by human standards you will be well enough. Want to try?”

“Are you asking me to sing for you Corporal…”

Levi’s sigh is heavy and almost exasperated.

Eren is unexpectedly frustrated.

“But you told me before that in this world mermaids singing has always been something bad to you humans, why do you want me to- besides to us it’s different…”

Levi turns to look at Eren’s face. It’s so angry, the line across Eren’s brow- it’s almost amusing to look at.

“Very well. It’s your decision over whether or not to do it.”

Eren makes a noise that sounds almost like grumbling before-

“N-no I’ll do it but I can’t guarantee you’ll enjoy it.”

And then-

A minute…

Two-

Much silence.

“If this is what all your kind’s singing sounds like then I have to say-”

“Please wait a moment Corporal!”

He can hear the sea again as Eren turns away from him. The way his shoulders are hunched up and his arms folded before him-

Quite the opposite of comfort and security.

Eren is nervous.

Eren’s voice is hushed and Levi isn’t sure if he’s being spoken to or if Eren is speaking to himself, “We’re not really supposed to be doing this sort of thing yet.”

And then the entirety of Levi’s sight is moonlight, as if you could hear through vision alone and it feels as if someone has taken him and plunged him under the water, into the coldness of it and dragged him back out- (again)

Eren’s voice is inhuman though the song itself has human words, the syllables of which are intoned with the familiarities of their common language- it’s what can only be described as “an old song”. Sometimes when Eren speaks his manner or the words he uses much in the pursuit of politeness are like that of old and he really does sound like he’s come from a legend of long ago, other times it is because a term is unfamiliar for the fact it does not exist in the human world, and another gives the nuance that over time such a word- a phrase once known to both has evolved over time and thus become unfamiliar.

If that were the case then mermaids were really…

(As Hanji had come to think- and told him-)

It had been a mistake to ask Eren to sing.

Horrendously. Painfully. Unforgivingly.

Beautiful.

Despite that it feels as if every bone from his body has been torn out and in their place is burning coal and iron- Levi still moves. It is as the old fables had said, every fisherman’s tale is true. If Levi thought he was drowning before- then he has seriously and truly fucked himself now. It’d been curiosity, and he’d not much need of that before in his life without a blade in hand first at the very least and he has no blade, not here- only his hands.

He places those hands over Eren’s neck and until the song stops he does not stop. Eren’s gasping for breath as he moves those hands to grip Eren’s head, more than a few strands of hair caught in his fingers as he straddles Eren. Pressing himself hot and needy against his belly, pressing his mouth against Eren’s neck and biting biting, gnawing at it until he tastes blood, hovering his mouth over Eren’s as his thinks- from here, in here- the sea lapping around them as Levi has pushed Eren down and-

Eren’s hands are fisted into his shirt, over his back, into his back, he can feel his nails, hard on his flesh, clinging to him as Eren just lies there- submissive- but when Levi tries to kiss him on the mouth he turns his face away, as if snapping to some realization-

“Eren.”

Levi draws himself up, and looks down.

“What sort of song was that?”

Eren won’t look directly at him, guilt imminent on all his features.

Why did he do that?

They have many uses for song, where he is from.

To sing your child to sleep, to tell tales of lore and history, to teach the safest flow to follow, to warn of predators, to become the predator, to make a friend, to incite a lover-

The sort of song Eren had just sung-

“I didn’t think it’d affect you, you’re not one of us after all…”

-was a love song.

Eren won’t let Levi touch his mouth with his mouth but he allows (cannot stop) Levi from touching it with his fingers, his thumb pressing thoughtfully there as he cups Eren’s chin and asks him-

“Who do you sing such a song for usually?”

Eren’s face is flushed as red as the marks left on his neck.

“It’s for… potential lovers…”

“Oh?”

“I’m sorry.”

“Why are you apologizing?”

“Because you wouldn’t have acted… you wouldn’t be doing what you’re doing if I hadn’t sung that song-”

The slight inclination of Levi’s brow is pondering.

“Is this what happened before to who you sung this song to?”

Eren sputters, his hands gripping harder than ever to hide their trembling-

“I have never sung this song before!”

“I’m the only one you’ve sung this song to?”

“I-I’ve never sung to anyone by themselves before- singular song is reserved for your children and your partner, we all sing in groups- to do without is special and- but you’re human! So I thought it’d be alright to do so and you asked this of me so I-”

Eren rambles on. Eyes confused and terribly young. Levi allows him to carry on a few minutes more before-

“Is it because I’m human you won’t let me kiss you?”

Pain etches itself into the confusion. Eren won’t look him in the eyes.

It’s irritating.

“I won’t let you kiss me because that’s something you’re only allowed to do if you’re promised!”

Levi...

It was brief, but that small choked half strangled sound that came deep from his throat is a chuckle.

Eren is looking at him, rather alarmed and no longer with the same indignation of before.

“You really are a brat,” Levi tells him.

Levi moves a leg back, and pulls Eren up by the back of the neck in one grip, while he snakes an arm under Eren to pull the rest of him up in this manner, seating themselves upright. Eren isn’t only sitting on Levi’s thighs this time. His confusion deepens further given this experience is unlike the last. Levi sees this, briefly entertaining the idea- just what sort of information on the human world he could teach Eren- what information he could exchange- so mermaids decide to fuck each other by literal serenade? Humans could do that too, though what defined a serenade to them was different to each and every one of them.

If Eren won’t let him kiss him then how else is Levi going to get to feel his mouth?

He subdues this idea by letting his grip fall to Eren’s hips. He stays his hands there and isn’t at all satisfied even as Eren starts to writhe in discomfort. The ocean being ice cold isn’t helping as much as he’d thought it would.

When Eren speaks next he’s expecting an apology from the tone, but instead it’s a blithe whine as Eren explains- “I-it’s your fault too, you asked for my scales. We’re only allowed to exchange those to someone we intend to marry… I was confused since you humans don’t have scales but then you gave me your clothes and didn’t you say scales and clothes are the same thing Corporal!?”

Levi’s grip is leaving bruises now, that’s why Eren’s breath and words are so hasty.

“I believe it was you who came to that assumption Eren.”

Eren holds himself stock still as he realises these words to be truth.

His look of absolute embarrassment, the moisture that starts to gather at the edge of his eyes- Levi crushes Eren against him, the boy’s face hot against his throat as he gives a wail of positive misery.

And then come his apologies-

“I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry excuse me forgive me forgive me-“

And Levi has his hand in Eren’s hair again, pulling his face back, if Eren is so fucking sorry and will not shut the fuck up then he’ll shut him up, or so is his intention- but just because Eren is cowering from mortification at his own stupidity doesn’t mean he’s let his guard down as much as Levi thinks and his mouth is pushed away with equally stupid long fingers as Eren refuses him again- and Levi has had enough with this shit as he starts to kiss every other part of Eren’s body within his reach as he imagines Eren’s mouth, that mouth trailing down, his long fingers unbuckling his trousers and reaching in to draw out his dick and Eren putting his dick in his mouth and  _fuck_ -

Why the fuck was that not actually happening as he kisses down Eren’s chest, over his breast, his stomach to above Eren’s navel, wondering if Eren really did give him his scales with that sort of mentality then why can’t he let him kiss him anyway, he starts to suck at Eren’s hip, a hand on Eren’s tail- feeling those scales, muscles jumping beneath his coveting touch-

Eren pushes him as hard as he can and his back is soaking wet- that splash he hears next can only mean Eren is back in the ocean, he’s fucking hiding behind a rock now and-

“There’s a lot of seaweed over here Corporal!”

He’s gunna fucking roast him.

The next time he builds a fire.

And then he’s gunna be done with all this shit because his patience- fuck that shit still existed- has maxed out.

“Eren.”

“It’s really gross Corporal! It’s sticking to everything! It’s all over the place!”

“Eren-“

“You definitely do not want to come over here! I shall handle this myself Corporal!”

“Eren.”

Eren peers over the rock, gaze frightened and nervous.

Levi has never lost a battle before this night.

“I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Eren sinks under the water, the disappearing red tips of his ears his only reply.

\--

Another tomorrow.

It’s so cold that every time Levi visits- Eren always has the mantle all bundled about him as he presses himself next to Levi and near the fire with a closeness that Levi wonders how his tail isn’t actually roasting.

Sometimes Eren has him heat water to put on his tail.

His tail that’s condition has only worsen, day by day, week by week.

When Eren returns to the sea he doesn’t really swim in it, “It’s rather cold,” is what Levi is told. Eren just wets his tail enough for the sake of preservation. The truth is Eren is too weak to swim.

Levi thinks, contemplates, perhaps he should bring Eren into the house. Hanji has no end of rooms and more that could be modified to fit Eren’s comfort and there’s always the bath they could use. It would sure beat freezing out here. But then Levi also knows Eren wants to go home, and it was one thing to sit on the shore by the sea, then to actually leave the sea.

If Levi brought Eren back home there also isn’t any telling he’ll be entirely safe either. He’d be the only known mermaid to make it to the surface (and maybe there was a reason for that) and while Levi is sure he could beat Hanji into cooperation (decency), on her peers… he isn’t sure they wouldn’t leak Eren’s existence out to the mainland… and what sort of danger (that even he wouldn’t be able to beat) that could come from that no matter how hard he fought-

And there is another matter, a twisted disgusting one that overrides all and mars rationale. He tried to keep it in denial- he tried to banish it from himself but it became too difficult, more so ever since Eren told him what it meant to give him his scales- such knowledge has made him more concrete on this fact (this fantasy) he’d come to possess- that Eren’s life is his and he gets to decide where and how Eren lives as well as where and how Eren dies because Eren had given it to him- his life- that night he decided to save Levi’s own life- it is a terrible logic that he is sure is even more inhuman than Eren, that convinces him as they are is fine fine fine fine even as each passing day Eren finds it harder to move (not only from the cold) and doesn’t protest when half the time is spent in Levi’s arms as he is carried farther and farther every day to see a part of the world that is not as close to the ocean.

Levi does this gradually to not alarm him, stating to Eren that before he leaves for home he’ll want to see a few more things (before they withered away Eren loved the flowers, such different textures and shapes than the flowers in the sea, than the coral, than anything he’s ever seen before) and every day is a day before the last.

Soon Eren will be well enough to go home.

That is what they have both convinced themselves.

\--

Soon does not come, something else comes.

Levi is unable to visit the cove for some time. A state of emergency calls him back to the city. Erwin calls him and he is away for more than a week.

With his help the situation is handled swiftly and efficiently, it is no surprise- all Levi had to do was kill the enemy. That is what he does best.

Kill people.

Kill things.

When he visits the cove next Eren does not respond when called as he always does and Levi is left to scavenge the entire cove, every instinct, every honed skill of detection on edge as he wonders at the impossible- that Eren left for home without saying good bye.

He finds Eren sleeping behind the rock that he’d placed the mantle on the first time they’d met, he’s curled up in such mantle and when Levi wakes him-

“Ah, it’s good that you’re here Corporal I’ve been waiting for you.”

Eren is always waiting for him.

Eren sits up and rubs the sleep from his eyes, but the exhaustion is still there. Eren is sick. Sicker than before. His tail does not move at all, the once healthy strength it carried, waned. The once sleek shining scales dulled. The wound that refused to heal entirely is crusted with dark heavy material, like petrified wood.

This happened gradually. This happened slowly. This happened despite Eren’s appetite. Despite his robust energy. Despite his curiosity. Despite the salve.

Or was it because of it?

Did his wounds not heal, because of that unfamiliar salve Levi had administered?

Had Eren not truly been getting the nutrition he needed because it’d not all been from the sea?

Was he not able to get better at all because of the changing seasons?

Had it been for all these things that Eren had reached this point?

Or had it been because he’d left, though he’d told Eren before he was leaving for the time being- that in his absence Eren had to this extent-

(-is surely about to die.)

“I was afraid you wouldn’t return in time for me to say good bye. I’m departing for home tonight. I swim better in the dark.”

Eren is speaking but the words-

As Levi once again gathers Eren to him- Levi can feel Eren’s heartbeat is dull and his skin feverish. Even so Eren speaks- the last of his strength going into what he has to say, the last of his strength going into what he will do next-

“I really enjoyed learning about the human world from you. I can’t wait to tell everyone what I learned about when I return! I’m sure they’re wondering what I’ve been up to.”

He’ll return to the sea-

“I definitely won’t forget you. Though it seems impossible I hope that we will meet again one day.”

-and die.

Without becoming a burden.

That is his intention and it is so obvious Levi cannot forgive it.

“Thank you, Mr Levi.”

He absolutely won’t forgive it.

“You are forgetting something very important Eren.”

His voice is low and harsh but Eren is close and so he hears it, no- even if they’d been far apart, on opposite ends of the battlefield- if Levi spoke Eren would hear it.

And Levi stands, Eren in his arms, determined and battle ready. That’s right, right now this cove is a battlefield and Levi has had enough of men dying for him.

“You are not allowed to return home.”

You are not allowed to die.

“I made a promise to you didn’t I? For what true purpose do you wear my mantle?”

And Eren- eyes widening-

“Then I shall give it back,” Eren is saying, and his tone dips, sad with realization- “That’s right, I cannot take it with me.”

He moves to take it off, but he has not the strength to do even that. He seems not to comprehend this and futilely, though it takes so much effort, has come to grip one of the lapels. But only that.

“That is quite enough,” Levi tells him, as a means to cease his movements and Eren is still, so terribly still in his arms even before he said those words that Levi stumbles in a step- from the shore as he recognizes this feeling- it has not been with him since he’d been a boy-

It is fear.

When he regains his balance, that one stumble, that one fumble so unlikely to his demeanor, to his pose and strength, as if that one faith has been tainted Eren has started to close his eyes ready to depart here- ready to-

“ _Look at me_.”

The words are a haggard roar.

They are a threat worse than death.

Eren’s eyes shoot open as Levi regains his balance, the weight of Eren being another dead body, another sacrifice is gone and bears him down no longer. It had not been Eren’s physical weight to begin with boring down upon him.

Eren is his sword, lighter, faster, stronger than anything in this world.

An extension of him.

It is simply not possible to let him go.

“Eren. This is an order. So long as I am by your side you are not allowed to die. Do you understand?”

One step, two and thirty, a thousand more he will take.

When Eren seems to understand- he fights.

Fight fight fight fight  _fight fight fight_ -

Eren claws at Levi’s face, claws at his throat, using every muscle in his body to reject this hold, to reject this world- because if he doesn’t-

“No! No!  _No!_ ” and it is heartbreaking and terrifying all at once, Eren’s screams as he struggles, reaching out to the sea, looking back to the sea- desperation clinging to every feature of him as Levi carries him, holding him to him and trapping him within his steady unrelenting unstoppable march away from-

“Please please please please anything but this please  _I beg of you return me to the sea!_ ”

Levi has to break his arm.

It was that or lose an ear.

The right half of Levi’s face is so slick and sticky with blood that he’s not sure if he can find any comfort in the fact that he’s not blind.

He’ll break the other arm if he has to.

In the end he has to.

When he reaches the doors to the mansion, half covered in blood, Eren is semi unconscious- his breath pained and haggard, had Levi not broken his arms his hands would have clawed through his chest or Levi’s- and torn the heart out.

Levi is grateful that the sounds of his heavy footsteps must have, along with the slam of the doors, awoken Hanji in this dead of the night. It’s a good thing too because it meant he didn’t have to deal with kicking her ass out of bed.

When she sees him, a robe flung over her nightgown and lantern in hand, hair quickly done up, rushing down the stairs- first there is wonder at what is in his arms, revelation and elation- and then when seeing the state he’s in- the dark crimson that drips from him onto their floors he’s meticulously made sure to always be clean- atop with the state of what is in his arms is in-

“Hanji. Do something, do anything- please- save Eren!”

And the fact that it is not an order given to her but a plea, Hanji knows.

This is rather serious.

She straightens her also hastily thrown on glasses, ready to do that anything asked of her, she’s not chiding him but there is no praise there, only a certain sort of sympathy in her voice that she’s reserved for her fellows- her comrades and test subjects alone-

“Oh Levi, that is not how you treat a princess.”


	3. Chapter 3

“It’s possible,” Hanji says.

She turns to Levi, a cooling cup of coffee in her hand, as she looks over the piles of paper and books they’ve complied onto the small table of the data needed for this to succeed. Levi doesn’t touch his cup at all,  _picky bitch_  is what Hanji is thinking (with some affection) he always did prefer tea, he just never said anything about it. Preferences of likes and dislikes when it got really personal- he was never much to voice them unless they had something to do with the job, then you were going to get an earful because if he took the time to tell you to do something exactly and trusted you to do it and you still fucked up, boy if you weren’t dead you were in a heap of trouble!

“You gave me Eren’s scales and his hair with a hunch didn’t you? From all that reading in the library before, of those files we got from the church.”

Levi looks up at her from a paper of particular interest (though looking at his face you'd think otherwise) he’s scanning.

“That’s right. When I first met him I thought there might be a connection.”

Hanji’s nod is satisfied.

“Ehe, those bastards, thinking they’d just shove all of mankind’s achievements and technology under the carpet! The ability to fly, vaccines, weapons of mass destruction-”

Levi glances over the giant pool next to them where Eren is now sleeping deep within. All sorts of tubes and equipment hooked up on him to keep him alive. They’d built the pool, it’d been more than a pain in the ass to and in the short time that they did (Hanji had kicked out near all her assistants to keep a secret so they couldn't help) as soon as they’d stabilized Eren. It was a messy affair, Hanji was kind enough (having the larger tub and was rather elated really) to allow them to use her bathtub for Eren, who even after having his limbs broken still struggled. The water wasn’t salt and he knew it right away, they tried to submerge him but in the end they had to drug him to do it. It was a large portion of his tail they had to cut away. Using tools only Hanji had or that had been found from the church. Eren’s tail had been entirely infected, how the rest of Eren remained the amount of functional it did had to be from his strong will and-

“-you thought of this too didn’t you Levi. There’s no such thing as real mermaids. Merely human’s own quest to survive no matter what. These files-”

Hanji taps a finger on them, smile so tender a lamb would allow her to cut its throat without a fuss.

“-document experiments on creating superhumans: humans merged with beasts, humans merged with birds, humans merged with fish. To cover land, air and water, if you conquer the earth, if you rule the earth-”

“You survive. That is obvious, get to the point shitty glasses.”

Hanji sighs, but even that is fond.

“The only reason Eren’s tail didn’t fully infect the rest of him is because the rest of him is human. The disease he developed only affects fish.”

She takes a sip of her coffee.

“It’ll take some time, and there’s no guarantee it’ll work and I can’t even begin to think what damage psychologically this might have.”

Levi scowls at her, “You’re so full of shit, you’re practically dancing at the prospect.”

Hanji doesn’t even bother to hide her grin, “Well you’ve caught me there it’s gunna be super~ interesting~ not to mention if Eren does survive it’ll only help support that he’s a descent of these experiments of our ancestors. There’s no way a regular human would be able to survive this strain and I do feel for him, poor princess.”

The tears in Hanji’s eyes now are very real, Levi turns away from her. Ignoring her when she untucks a certain envelope addressed to him from beneath the rest of the papers.

She doesn’t say anything but sets it by Levi’s very cold cup of coffee.

It’s unheard of for Levi not to reply to Erwin’s summons, with at the very least a written response as to why not.

Levi looks down at it, he’s read it, he knows what it is. He tells her flat out.

“I cannot leave this place.”

Hanji sets her empty cup down, sitting up from her seat. Levi wants to go to Erwin but he can't, to tell Erwin he can't do something he wants to do- they are so difficult sometimes, those two.

She’s going to check the water in the pool, make sure the temperature is comfortable for the precious occupant it holds.

Levi rises to join her.

“I can’t go back on orders I myself have given.”

\--

His eyes are heavy.

When he opens them Mikasa is looming over him worriedly, concern etched into her brow and frown.

“Are you alright Eren?”

Eren rises, floating a little from where he’d been laying down. Not the softest spot of anemones (some of which you really don't wanna lie on) but better than straight out coral.

“Ah, I’m fine. I just had a really…”

Odd dream? He couldn’t even remember the dream. Even though he carried the feeling upon waking it’d been a bad dream, he also felt it hadn’t all been bad.

“Never mind it. Should we be heading back now?”

Mikasa nods, holding up in one of her tentacles the heavy net of their killed prey. Though Eren had contributed to it and it was a sizable amount- all the fish he’d caught hadn’t nearly been as big as the ones she’d caught.

Seeing his forming pout she’s about to say something, probably in attempt to comfort him when from a distance-

“Eren! Mikasa!” Armin swims over to them, something clutched in his hand.

He excitedly shows them. Mikasa’s expression neutral not just for this but because it usually is so. Eren looks at what is in Armin’s palm.

“My grandfather gave it to me. Apparently it’s part of a tool humans use in their world to help them eat.”

He holds out the bit of metal.

Mikasa takes it and looks it over, softly commenting-

“It looks like one half of a shell.”

Mikasa passes it to Eren who turns it about in his fingers.

Eren’s brow scrunches up as he thinks what it could be used for. Armin gives an explanation on how he came to the conclusion that it was broken by how a part of it looked. From what he’s heard humans have a lot of tools, their teeth aren’t nearly sharp or their jaws and hands aren’t ever strong enough. Was it from the water in the other sea that they were like that? Maybe it was different, the water…?

Water is very important-

A sudden pressure of movement. Jean and Connie whirl by them, racing. Connie won of course, but he doesn’t know where the finish line is and he’s still racing ahead even as Jean stops by them. Fuck.

Jean isn’t a bad guy- just so annoying, the moment they’d met as children Jean had started giving him shit because their scales were a similar shade, something unheard of in their community. If their upper portions looked anything alike they’d be mistaken for siblings, they are called ‘tail siblings’ anyway, as before them it was unheard of.

Mikasa always pressed her lips angrily when she heard other kids tease them about it and even some adults call them it (to the adults it was funny or cute no harm done). Jean and Eren bickered to no end like siblings after all. There wasn’t anything in this ocean they didn’t disagree on and couldn’t fight over. Sometimes the fights weren’t just verbal and the bruises and scratches they inflicted on the other did not go unnoticed; should one of them get a scratch or bruise some other means the other was still to blame.

Jean’s recent favourite topic to antagonize Eren is his interest in the lore of humans. Eren thinks humans are real and so because he does, Jean doesn’t think humans are real.

Never mind Armin thought humans are real too, Jean never gave him trouble for it.

The only trouble he wanted to be, the only trouble he wanted to be had is for Eren and Eren alone.

That’s why, having somehow overheard their conversation-

“What’s this? Something from the human world? What a bunch of crap.”

Even though he’d just snapped it out of Eren’s fingers he presses the bit of metal back into Eren’s hand. Hard.

Eren’s scowl is all out.

“Piss off Jean. No one  _here_  gives a shit about your opinion.”

Jean turns red at this.

Pointing at Eren, the other arm extends out far to the trailing lines of the barrier-

“It is a bunch of crap! You’re dreaming! The humans and their world don’t exist. None of us have ever left the barriers of the Superior Sea. You can’t live out there!”

Eren swims up angrily, up to where Jean is yelling at him, gets in his face.

“Just because none of us have actually seen a human-”

Jean won’t back down, especially not with Eren this close to him.

“Nothing can live outside the barrier! That goes for humans too. What’s the point in wasting your time on this sort of shit, it’s so childish-”

Perhaps because Armin is present too and founded Eren’s interest, Eren is especially hostile, and especially pissed off. He slams his forehead against Jean’s, teeth grinding. Before he can decide to bite him, Mikasa places a hand on both their shoulders and pulls them apart.

Eren looks over to her surprised as it’s not his name she says-

“Jean.”

Her expression hasn’t changed but the demeanor and the slight shift of her voice, a tone she’d never use on Eren, reveals she’s quite had enough of this.

Jean is still surprised she touched him and blinking, it takes some time for the words she says to sink in.

“Humans exist. I believe humans exist.”

Whether or not Mikasa does actually believe doesn’t matter, Jean sees right away what Mikasa is doing. It is what she’s always doing. Protecting Eren. While Jean in his own way was trying to protect them all, because even though he isn’t sure whether humans exist or not- what he is sure is talking about them is dangerous. No humans exist here- to see, to begin to try to prove they exist you’d have to leave the barrier. They’d learned since they were young that to leave would mean death. What horrors that laid outside the barrier- if humans did exist out there then what a horrible creature they must be, what a horrible sea they must reside in. It is dangerous to seek them because it would be at the cost of one’s own life.

There are not many of them to begin with, they can’t stand to have a single one of them meaninglessly killed.

That’s why Mikasa doesn’t want Jean to rile Eren up any more. If Jean persists in denying humans, Eren will persist in accepting them. He will seek them. He will leave the barrier. If that were to happen then Mikasa-

And then something amazing happens.

It’s predictable given the current circumstances.

“…that’s right, Mikasa… you’ve got a good head on your shoulders, if you say humans exist then…”

Eren pulls back, swimming backwards, returning the item to Armin and then turning away to swim further off absolutely disgusted. He doesn’t really think Jean changed his mind, he doesn’t think Jean really cares either way. Jean-

He really hopes no one will blame Jean.

Especially Jean himself.

Eren stops swimming.

Blame?

What was there to blame? Why shouldn’t Jean get blamed? Weren’t they always pulling that sort of crap? Why couldn’t they do that anymore?

It feels like the whole current is going in the opposite direction. But how? Wasn’t it turning the other way just a second ago?

Where is he?

Why is it suddenly different?

What happened to the scene of before?

Today is the day of the girls festival, so Mikasa is busy. Annie and her are supposed to perform together and guide the other girls in the song of ceremonies but they’ve always been at odds with the other and everyone isn’t entirely sure if they’re going to go through on it. Eren has rather admired Annie, in an older sister sort of way and Mikasa never took to that, that and the two girls were always being compared to the other for their high skills in fishing, singing, grappling, they were made rivals despite their revulsion and denial of it.

Since the whole colony is distracted with the festivities, and he doesn’t have to do chores today Eren figured when was a perfect chance like this ever going to happen again?

He would just be gone for a little while, just to see if it is possible.

Going a little ways from the barrier surely isn’t going to kill him.

He remembers (remembers?) he got the net, to make it seem like he was going fishing. He took the older smaller one. Mikasa would need the other for some of the events she’d be in. So he’d have an explanation, an excuse. He remembers catching some fish, just in case he got stuck temporarily outside the barrier and what if there really wasn’t fish outside the barrier…

He swam fast, faster than ever once he came to the edge.

He plunged forward, through the dark, through the nothing, against the pressure, against the phantom of hands that told him, that tried to pull him back.

Don’t go.

Don’t go.

_Don’t go._

Fought and pushed and the net was gone, his provisions gone, and bursting through, the dark that is darker than black he reaches beyond the barrier.

Tired he wonders from how long, how hard he had to swim or both?

But as he advances the sea here is brighter, lighter.

He sees fish and creatures he’s never seen back in the colony of the Superior Sea.

Some are more dangerous than they look and some are far less fearsome than they are.

A friendly creature and its fellows, with grey bodies and smooth skin, speaks to him. There are many of them and they all swim together for a while. When the creatures swim up and up, and Eren becomes light headed he hangs back, to see them jump up out into-

“What’s that?!” he asks them when they swim back to him wondering why he didn’t join them. Their laughing clicking language comprehensible to him.

“The surface?” he wonders, was that the proper word for it?

He asks them about humans.

They’re all actually laughing now.

The humans do not live in another sea, they live on the surface, that which hangs above the surface is the sky.

They know this for they have seen humans and they have seen birds.

Birds?

 _The fish in the other ocean_  they tell him, laughing, playful. They want him to jump with them but Eren chooses not to.

Maybe it was well they did it but for him…

He should get back.

He swims and swims and swims.

But from the darkness, never having left it before he does not know how to return to it. When the sea changes from light to dark he thinks he might be home soon again, but it does this many times and he comes to know this dark is not true dark. It doesn’t seem any way he turns is the way home. When he asks directions the creatures he encounters are either too dumb or hostile.

No merpeople seem to live beyond the barrier no doubt he is just as frightening.

But he will not give up, he will swim through the whole ocean if he must.

And when he returns he can tell everyone what lies beyond the barrier…

With that in mind he sums up the resolve to before returning home, at least go to the surface once. It’ll only be for a little bit; if it’s dangerous he can just return to the sea right? Is what he’s reasoning, swimming along, wondering if he’ll get to see a human if he goes to the surface, wondering if they really hobble about on what Armin told him are legs (like arms!), picturing giant crabs he-

The dark flashes light above, something that’s never happened before.

There’s a hollowed far out noise, once, twice and then plunging towards him a giant shadow- many shadows-

_What’s that?_

Eren wonders, suddenly on edge, his instinct driving his next movements, quick, he swims around the sudden odd stiff… coral that’s sinking around him. Swims away from it, up.

Up until he feels the movement of the water, he draws back down, if he goes too far up it’ll surround him and draw him to the surface.

It’s then he sees, also sinking, not the dark matter of before but a figure far off- surrounded by the oddest tail Eren has ever seen (maybe like a jelly fish? It’s dark green but not clear) Mikasa is an irregular too maybe this person is like her- maybe merpeople did exist in the sea beyond the barrier!

Eren excitedly swims over to the figure, it looks male? His dark hair cropped in a style Eren has never seen, swimming round to face him, hoping with how slow this fellow merperson swims (perhaps that is how the merpeople of outside the barrier swim) that his quick swimming doesn’t startle him. Eren is about to apologise and say a proper greeting but-

The person’s eyes are closed.

This is an odd place to sleep.

And he doesn’t… seem to be swimming, just limp. Looking at his tail it is trailing, sliding off him- perhaps he’s injured, perhaps- and Eren having trailed his vision down.

Looking where his tail should be if that thing that slid from him isn’t… are…

Realizations come crashing into the other, like rocks, like the odd dark matter (had that been rocks?) and echoing somewhere in his memory Armin explaining to him- in the other sea, in the human world- to humans their sea is-

Eren rushes forward, pulling the human to him into his arms, twisting what he’d thought been the human’s tail around his forearm, and gripping, crushing the human to him he gathers all the strength he can, all the strength he’s reserved, as he looks up to where the surface is, eyes gold- he inhales deeply, coiling his body back-

He bursts forward.

However now that he needs to break to the surface it proves harder than it would have been before- there’s all that dark matter to avoid, the current is sharp and violent. As it had pulled him to not go beyond the barrier it now draws him both right and left, cruel and punishing. But he must reach the surface as soon as possible and at whatever cost to himself. What of that dark matter that impales him, that strikes him- Eren holds the human’s face and head against his chest, clutches the rest of his body to his body, twisting every which way he must so that dark matter doesn’t reach the human- he struggles, struggles to reach the surface for if he doesn’t-

And water fills his lungs, water is in his lungs and he cannot breathe.

Why can’t he breathe?

It’s the human he’s worried about. It’s humans who can’t-

He breaks to the surface gasping, choking, coughing, sharp inhale, exhale, inhale.

But it’s not him and the human it’s Corporal who has him in his arms it’s Corporal who is telling him, swearing, cursing, once more that he cannot die, he’s already ordered him not to, he’s here, he’s still here he isn’t leaving as he swims them to the edge of the sharpest shore, hefting him over, and then himself, also struggling for breath as they lie there against each other against cold stone (tile) and Eren, eyes green blue and blue green- looks to see entangled with Corporal Levi’s legs another pair of legs.

His vision inverts for a second, the top portion of his skull hot, feverish as he rises enough from beneath Levi to reach- touching a leg, another leg both covered in sopping wet cloth (Levi’s legs), then the one next to it, the one with just skin and the other like it and he feels his own touch on them and-

Levi watches every change, every progression of terror Eren slowly descends into as he thinks thinks thinks why is this so. He’d been saving the human, he’d broken to the surface and when the human had not stirred, Eren had swam, keeping the human’s head above the water, as he made his way to the rocks in the distance, the rocks of the surface, the clinging sand of the shore of the surface, of the human world- dragged him up there. Wondering, wondering what on earth could he do because the human is dying if there is water in his lungs then how does he get it out what did Armin say and then Eren doesn’t remember anything just feels, an intuition he didn’t know he possessed urges him to turn the human over, and striking his back once, twice- the human spits up the water and is gasping, inhaling, breathing… Eren gives a sigh of relief.

With the human breathing now, alive, Eren had set him to rest his head against his lap and taking his head between his fingers, he felt the human’s hair, hair that is no longer under water. He reaches to curiously touch his own hair, it feels similar.

After some time, looking up at the other sea, the rocks, the odd plants here and the top of the ocean, water the mother of them all- the circle yellow light from the other sea tremendously beautiful and everything so different, so foreign and familiar and he’d ached and then looking down again to study every feature, every difference and similarity of this human?

Eren had drawn his hands away, best to behave himself, looking over the rest of the human, how odd legs are, how odd the human’s skin, he’d flung some of it on a nearby rock, trembling from exhaustion and worry, what if the human ended up dying because he was missing that skin?

He’d glance over back again, finding looking at the human’s face was the most pleasing and so he would continue to do that when-

The human had opened his eyes.

That human is-

Levi pins Eren down, his hands over the boy’s wrists, his legs against his legs, he wasn’t sure what Eren was about to do but the vicious intent his hands had taken much like that night he'd been taken here-

Levi is about to tell Eren to calm down when Hanji walks over, too excited to be shy, but with enough restraint he didn’t know she was capable.

“There there! We finally meet Mermaid Princess!”

Startled, Eren twists to see the owner of the voice.

But she’s thrown a towel over his face, it falls against his chest, suddenly confused but subdued- Levi releases Eren, peeling some of his clothes off and drying himself with the second towel the owner of the voice had thrown at him. When he's finished, he picks the towel up from Eren's chest and proceeds to wrap Eren in it, who looks rather affronted now. The material is much softer than the mantle, but still he-

“Corporal! The mantle!”

Levi is drying Eren’s hair.

“You can have it when you aren’t sopping wet Eren.”

Eren doesn’t understand but before he can argue Levi points from where they are to the other corner of the pool, where the mantle is hanging over his chair. Hanji had wondered why Levi still had that around when winter was long over, spring, summer, autumn, winter again and spring again.

The time it’d taken for Eren to recover and to grow legs and more was nothing short of miraculous given the short amount of time it’d actually taken him. Hanji had figured it’d be more than a decade. But as time progressed, so did Eren’s health and that possible decade started to dwindle to half a decade, months, days.

It had only been about a year before that Levi and she had been peering over all those papers wondering if this even had a chance at being possible.

“ _If Eren is even partially human it’s possible to make him fully human,_ ”

That is the hypothesis they’d come to.

Just as it might be possible through the methods they’d gathered of the hidden science of their ancestors, for many of them to become half of what they are… Hanji won’t tinker with that though, she has her own style and own interests to pursue and a very fascinating mermaid turned human waiting.

Levi has bundled Eren up in the towel, and carrying him once again, Eren’s face showing the exact amount of anxiety he’s feeling (a lot). He can’t walk on his legs yet, he can barely move them, the fact that he can move them at all is stupendous. Since it’d been his tail that’d been infected, and his first time with legs of course they are weak, though they show the same potential to possess the (previous) strength his tail had.

Levi is about to kick Hanji into the pool if she keeps poking around like she is, talking a mile a minute, asking how Eren feels, asking what he feels, if he’s hungry, if he has to defecate, if he is hot or cold, can he move his arms, can he look over to her and tell her-

“Hanji will you shut the fuck up for a moment.”

Levi sets Eren into his seat and drawing the towel back now that Eren is not dripping wet, proceeds to examine Eren who looks more comfortable with the towel off. Hanji hanging in the back, a clipboard, paper and pen ready.

The chattering ceases with the sound of furious writing.

Eren glances nervously at his legs now, as if should he not acknowledge them they won’t actually be there, he does this for some time before Levi sets his hands down against Eren’s thighs and dragging his hands over them, Eren shuddering- turning to see Levi’s glare-

“Look Eren.”

Eren remembers the last time he was told to look so he doesn’t turn away from Levi’s face, when Levi realises this he tries to say, a touch more kindly (and it nearly scares the shit out of Hanji who jumps a foot-) this touch somewhat failing.

“Don’t be afraid. You will learn to use them properly. Without fail.”

Hanji recovering, nods, “That’s right that’s right Mermaid Princess! You’re pretty strong! Almost as strong as-” she gives his shoulder a violent pat, Levi doesn’t move an inch from it “-Levi here and that’s saying something!”

Eren looks over from Levi to her, wondering what sort of person this Hanji is if they can address Corporal so, he starts- “Is that really true Mr Hanji?”

Hanji’s glasses fog Levi swears to all the dead gods. She’s holding in what might be glee or gas as she starts writing furiously on her clipboard instead of answering Eren.

Levi steps on her foot, hard. Rising from there, stretches up to see what she’s writing so madly about. Seeing she’s writing about how the subject has mistaken her gender, what that must mean about mermaids' perception of gender, how the subject really is only 15 years of age like the investigation on his DNA told her-

“Hey. Answer him. Mr shitty glasses.”

Hanji pushes up her glasses and before that elbow to the gut can be anything else (like a knife to the gut)-

“OW it is so Princess~ under the right amount of training you’ll be ready to explore the human world in no time!”

Eren looks like he’s ready to catapult into her arms the moment the word ‘explore’ leaves her lips, she opens her arms to him and Levi intervenes mercilessly by getting between them, seeming to want to shield Eren from her.

“What else would you like to tell Eren?”

Hanji huffs playfully.

“You’re never any fun sometimes Levi.”

She peers over Levi. Eren looks up at her interested, hands on his knees now, sitting nicely in her opinion for someone who’s never had legs and she wonders what that’s about would all mermaids do that if they turned human suddenly?!

“By the way, you don’t need to address me so formally. My full name is Hanji Zoe, nice to meet you!”

And with a little less enthusiasm, she's laughing like she's not sure to laugh because it makes others uncomfortable so maybe she should be uncomfortable but she's never uncomfortable so?

“I’m not a guy so using the prefix you did…”

Eren straightens his spine, nodding, “I’m Eren Yeager, it’s a pleasure to meet you too Ms Hanji.”

“Ah,” Hanji looks over to Levi, his arms are crossed now, he doesn’t look back at her.

“So you did know that I was a girl from the start?”

Eren looks a little sheepish.

“N-no to be honest… but because you kept calling me princess I-”

Hanji bursts out laughing.

She doesn’t stop calling Eren princess.

Levi kicks her into the pool.


	4. Chapter 4

Spring tends to be cold until near the very end here.

Unfortunately that meant Eren (who prefers to sleep in the nude) would insist that he should press himself as close as possible to Levi in their bed, and steal nearly all the blankets for himself. It was almost humorous considering the tremendous effort it’d taken both he and Hanji to get Eren to wear clothes. He is human now so he should try to adapt- and wearing clothes, especially in the cold is essential for survival.

It worked out in the spring but come summer he peels them off as he pleases should they leave him unattended (a princess indeed) and go dive in that ridiculously big pool that he’d slept in for nearly an entire year.

It took him about a month to learn how to walk, and only a few days to learn how to swim with human legs. Before he gained these abilities Levi carried him everywhere. Hanji often couldn’t contain her laughter at humanity’s strongest soldier carrying a person 10cm taller than him. Eren’s figure is lanky atop of that so in the Corporal’s arms he looks especially tall. But Corporal would carry him like he weighs nothing; it became a task once Eren started to build more muscle through the exercises Hanji had designed to help him strengthen his legs.

She does routine health checks for him, everything is in working order come summer. Sometimes when Eren is too tired he forgets how to walk and tries to swim up the stairs, it is rather amusing until he finds it not possible, and then proceeds to drag his body with his hands up mentioned stairs should Levi not be around; the number of times Levi has caught Eren dragging himself  _across the floor_  and even up  _stairs_  for fuck’s sake they were clean when he saw to it but still- one musn’t crawl on the  _floor_ \- the count is far too high.

The only time Levi permits Eren to be on the floor is when they are cleaning it. Eren has a knack (determination to get a task done when told to do as such) and a skinny enough arm to reach under particularly steep, narrow places that sometimes the duster just couldn’t clean as well without that extra “umph” from a steady hand. Sometimes (often) Levi also lifts Eren up to clean places he couldn’t reach even with a stool (and he never asked for Hanji’s assistance, she’d get distracted by some bug, ew, she’d find or the particular shade of dust, ew, that gathered and either make an entirely bigger mess of the place or turn it into another side experiment).

During this time, letters from the capitol pile up, not only from Erwin, some even to Hanji from confused colleagues, inquisitive peers, and old friends (“Did you think you were my only friend Levi, you know Petra is both our friend!”) having been distracted by the very interesting live specimen that is Eren, she too neglects her contacts.

While Eren doesn’t always understand certain aspects of the human world when Hanji explains them, if she fails to dumb it down enough, Levi explains it- or in the case of what exactly is a bear? When Hanji had said Eren’s physical strength is much akin to that of a bear’s- Levi’s answer to Eren’s confusion had been to hunt one down and bring it back to show it in the flesh (dinner had been interesting for a while).

Hanji enjoys their company. Levi is familiar (and really fun to rile up once you got past the constant look of exhausted legitimate irritation and your fear of death) and Eren is pretty cute (though sometimes very intense), always attentive to what she has to say and giving her the most fascinating insights about merpeople and their world!

Well well what should she call it? It was just in the ocean right? But “the sea” isn’t good enough… and “merpeople world” sorta sounds like she’s making fun of how Eren calls their world the “human world”… what had Eren actually called it though, where he’s from? The colony, “The Superior Sea”?

Is it superior because the colony is made up of superior beings?

She muses over this.

Sometimes it’s hard to talk to Eren at meal time, food interests him deeply, mainly how it’s prepared since he often finds it complex or meaningless (at first). He likes the concept of boiling a lot, Hanji thinks that’s a little scary considering what he is- was originally. He’s really into baking (the process more than the product), she thinks he’d get along with Petra who’d married a baker having come from a family of bakers herself. She wonders if he’ll be interested in steaming bread…

Another difficulty was before he’d gained use of his legs, there were many customs- many things (like table manners) he still lacked. While it was impressive he is aware what cutlery is (they didn’t have it where he is from) it was sometimes really tiring having to put up with Levi insisting that he feed Eren until Eren could feed himself. This often meant Eren ending up sitting in his lap again. Instead of at the centre left of the table, and so she was all at the other end by herself and Levi wouldn’t allow her to sit at the centre right (which is Erwin’s place, like she didn’t know- he’s always so particular about the weirdest shit sometimes) and because if she did sit there she’d be right in front of Eren (and Levi wouldn't have that, jealous possessive fucker).

But she can’t really blame him, from what she’s garnered (studied) on that exchange about the mantle and how Eren has given Levi his scales- they're betrothed aren’t they? She supposes it’s too tactless to ask straight out and every time she does attempt to, Levi’s very heavy foot or very swift leg is there to make sure commentary on certain topics (such as that) are kept minimum.

\--

Summer is nearly over.

They spend a lot of days in the library recently. Levi is teaching Eren how to read and write. If he knows his letters he’ll be able to learn even more about the human world (yes even understand the complicated lingo… some of it… that Hanji occasionally slips into). So far Eren can write fairly well. It’s just reading (especially when the font is small and repetitive) that gets him frustrated. Levi digs around for the few picture books for small children that exist and then some scientific ones, a lot about botany, that Eren won’t understand the contents of- hell he wasn’t even sure what the fuck he’d been reading when he’d flipped through it- but they had a lot of pretty pictures of flowers so Eren enjoys them just the same.

Levi and Hanji are still looking through the archives they’d confiscated from the church and while they’d found a few other interesting documents it wasn’t much to write back about. Speaking of which, he should finally cease putting off replying to Erwin… but it is difficult, if he replies he will have to leave. And while Eren seems well now, there is no telling what might happen- a coldness runs through him as Levi thinks of what happened before, the last time he’d left.

And he’d have to take a boat. Hanji joked he might be able to fly there if she’s able to replicate that machine that’s from the documents of their find- wouldn’t that be swell? He’d almost kicked her in the shin for that.

Eren would certainly want to see him off and the entirety of this time Levi has kept Eren away from the sea. The mansion is in the woods so while the cry of gulls can be heard- it doesn’t matter. So long as Eren can’t see or feel the sea, then he won’t be tempted to return to it.

Levi can’t ever let him return.

While he convinces himself that if he leaves Eren’s side Eren will die, perhaps it is the other way as well.

Should Eren return to the sea, driven by instinct, his true desire to return home, to be free- then what else is left for Levi? This life he has only now because Eren had saved it; did they not obtain doomed mutuality through fate?

What would he do without Eren’s warm breath against his neck when’s time for bed, driving him mad, aggravating him to no end- how shamelessly, how ignorantly Eren would press his naked body to his (“It’s warmer this way,”) every night. And every so often, though before Eren had come to share his bed Levi had not had this problem before- always a blank black sleep he’d had before then, whatever horrific dream, whatever tremendous recalling nightmare that haunted him he had no recollection in the day, only its shadow boring upon him. Heavy.

But with Eren they are livid and he will wake with sweat, an extended hand, futile in reaching for another hand, hands of those that had too sworn an oath with him and taken up sword- to cleanse this world and protect the people- hands that became severed, that rotted, and could not hold his own any more long gone while he remains.

When he wakes from such dreams Eren takes his hand and sings to him- strokes his hair, and rests his head upon his thigh or breast, never asking what it was that woke Levi, that woke him in turn.

War to Eren is foreign.

Your own kind killing each other is so explicitly unnatural to him, it took many times for the topic to filter through to him for him to gain a nuance of its concept, and when he had he’d become so incredibly ill Levi had had to carry him to bed early even before supper. Hanji and Levi had then decided speaking on the topic around Eren taboo.

If Levi cannot have Eren by his side, insisting he be allowed to wear the mantle no matter what heat, Eren who after gaining his strength could run and hunt with him in the woods, and see a live bear for himself- Eren who always made sure the china is spotless (Levi’s cup especially) because otherwise Levi would not have tea that day, Eren who smiles especially wide against his neck and fingers as if that is enough cover for Levi to not see it, Eren who wants to protect him and wants to be protected by him. Eren who saved him- Eren who belongs with him- belongs to him but still evades kissing him, allowing the neck, the side of his face, his brow, his hand, the inside of his wrists and Levi wonders what else more. Also wonders sometimes when Eren whines it’s especially cold if he should teach him a sure way on how he could warm him up, it’s hard not to think those thoughts when Eren insists on tangling their legs together- always always always pressing against him as they sleep-

When Levi wakes up Eren is not beside him.

Not surprising, since Levi is on the upper floor of the library, in the archives.

His body feels stiff. No wonder. He’d been on the napping on the hard floor. Tired of reading. Despite not being in his bed, that hadn't stop him from extending his arm out like Eren had been there as well. So it’d been a pile of books, uncomfortable- in an unpleasing way- he'd been spooning with.

Levi gets up and lights the lantern he always takes with him in case he went to an area of the library that lacks windows. It got pretty dark there, the archives having so many tall shelves. But now the whole library is dark from it being night. As Levi descends the stairs he sees Eren is on the main level, in the centre of the library- his usual spot where all the tables are, selected books and scattered paper and quills, a bottle of ink, surround him. Eren isn’t reading in the dark tonight, he’s writing in the dark.

Where he’s from is a dark ocean, so night to him while similar is still not true dark, so he can see rather well still. He jumps when Levi places a hand on his shoulder, the bright light from the lantern had been unable to garner his attention, so absorbed he’d been in what he’d been writing.

Levi tries to see what it is but Eren has pushed himself forward, turning his back on his work, as if that would do anything but rile curiosity. Levi for the most part in his life lacked it, so supposedly such a tactic to him could possibly be effective. But they’d been hanging out with Hanji for a long while, too long. She's rubbed off on the both of them.

Is Levi’s excuse.

It can’t be helped.

“What is it that you’re writing?”

Eren’s face goes from fearful to embarrassed in less than six seconds flat, he comes to the decision it’d be more difficult (and not worth the struggle) to hide his work. So after rubbing ink from one finger to the other, he reveals the sheet of paper he’d been writing so intensely upon.

What is on it-

“My name?”

Eren starts biting at his hand, the knuckles, along a pointer finger- a habit he’d developed (Hanji had explained) in reaction to various stress he’d otherwise would not be able to handle. Levi hates this habit. It is a distracting habit.

“You’re not offended…?”

Levi looks over the paper some more.

“I suppose I am. You spelled it wrong.”

Eren’s entire face is red. He looks down at his lap.

“Is that so? Then the book is wrong is it…”

Levi sets the paper down and writes it how he decided it to be spelled, many (but not too many) years ago.

“This is how it’s spelled.”

Eren leans over Levi’s arm that rests on the table now by the paper he’d corrected, brow furrowed in determination that he remembers.

“Uhm, could you tell me if… I spelled my surname correctly.”

Levi’s voice is angry though he is not entirely so this time, “If there’s more than one way and you didn’t have a spelling to begin with it’s free range ain’t it? You can choose however you like it to be spelled Eren.”

Eren bites his lip, and after some consideration- “Won’t… you help me choose? I was thinking… though we’re both male and it’s customary to take your wife’s name… that since you don’t have a surname to begin with you could share… mine…”

At his arm now, are Eren’s hands, holding him there as Eren brings his chin to prop upon Levi’s shoulder.

Levi looks more carefully at the paper.

It’s his name and Eren’s name over and over with different spellings of Eren’s surname and his first name.

So that was why Eren was so nervous to show him. On the paper Eren has dropped all honorifics.

Imagining Eren saying his name without any honorifics-

“Fine. I’ll accept it. However that means from now on you’re not permitted to call me ‘Corporal’ or ‘Mr Levi’. You must just call my name alone.”

Eren’s grip on his arm slackens and tightens.

He looks downfallen.

“No way…”

Levi almost sighs, almost says something else to try to convince Eren to hurry up and make up his mind when having set the lantern down, he looks at the books Eren has on the table. Not all of them are the ones he selected meaning Eren must have explored the library on his own while Levi had been napping. Looking at the titles, some of them even still half open, some of them with illustrations- Levi notices that all these books that Eren has out of his own choosing, minus the one on names- are about the sea.

Levi has no recollection of what he had wanted to say.

Only what he wants to hear this moment as he draws Eren to him- Eren is wearing his mantle, and has nicely and properly worn his clothes- of all times to do as he’s told- clothes that Levi starts to tear off as he pushes Eren against the table, to the floor, starting with the white button up shirt that he’s sure he ironed to prevent these wrinkles- begins kissing up and down Eren’s stomach, both palms sliding over his ribs, under his arms, pulling that shirt away, the mantle falling back behind him, splayed over the ground as Levi undoes the clasp and fastens his mouth over Eren’s throat and sucks, biting and licking at the underside of his chin.

He feels Eren’s hands scramble against his chest and his shoulders before clutching at his back. Eren squirms beneath him. There’s no seaweed infested waters for him to take cover in now.

He feels Eren’s fingers in his hair, Eren’s gaze pensive and far off like it’d been when he’d seen the sun- Levi draws back a little and peers down upon Eren's face, cupping it. While the other hand clutches at the wrist of Eren’s hand that’s come to touch Levi's face.

Levi decides-

He’s the most despicable creature on this earth.

Eren might not be full human but he is still better than a monster.

“It’s hot isn’t Eren? You don’t want to wear these confining clothes anymore do you?”

Eren nods.

He unbuttons Eren’s trousers and slides them off. Eren is confused about why they would sleep in the library, it doesn’t seem comfortable at all. He helps Levi out of his clothes. Their legs entwine as Eren likes, and Eren having comfortably settled against him- unguarded- looks at him questioningly, for this is the first time Levi doesn’t sleep with his back to Eren-

And then.

Levi kisses him on the mouth.

If Eren won’t say his name he’ll drag it out from him.

Eren jerks back but Levi holds him in place by the back of the neck, pins him once more. Any attempts he thought he would make when he finally got to kiss Eren at being gentle are mere ashes now. It is hot, it’s terribly hot, he rocks his hips against Eren’s as he sucks at Eren's tongue, slipping his in and out, determined to feel every crevice, to swallow every moan, every gasp and-

Sliding his hands up and down Eren’s slick back, traveling further, lower to rest and grope his ass. One he’d like to fuck like he’s fucking Eren’s mouth now with his own, again, every protest hushed, rebuked and devoured as Eren steadily submits to him.

Eren’s lips are red, bruised as he struggles for breath, Levi biting at them, ready to kiss him there again a hundred more times tonight if he can but allowing this kindness a protest slips through-

“We’re really not… not yet supposed-”

“By who? This isn’t the sea Eren.”

He’s spread Eren’s legs, legs Eren sometimes still takes the time to marvel at. Drawn them around his hips, before Levi presses himself inside Eren to make him realise how far away from the sea he really is- watches fascinated- the confusion, discomfort then- when he starts to move and Eren cries out, cries louder, startled and pained as Levi thrusts his cock deeper inside him- over and over, Eren thrusting back up against Levi wondering if that’s what he’s supposed to do, and supposes it might be from how tightly clenched Levi’s jaw is and how tightly Levi is gripping his hips.

Eren’s voice is jagged, breathy, caught on his own moans as he tries to convince Levi he’s supposed to wait even when he’s not waiting anymore.

“…I’m still not… of age yet… and we still haven’t- I still haven’t sung the song of rituals- I’m not worthy of-”

Whatever else he has to say is cut off as Levi thrusts into him hard, panting, Levi marveling at the feel of Eren’s heat surrounding him.

Eren doesn’t understand.

“It’s fine,” Levi tells him, lies – “As a human you’re of age enough if you can do this sort of thing. Whatever ritual song you need to sing you can just go ahead and sing it to me.”

Eren is biting his lip, eyes watering in frustration- still protesting, almost scowling- “T-that’s not how it works Levi!”

His name.

Over and over Levi wants to hear it, exactly like that, with a hint of anger, a hint of fury and indignation, he wants to hear it over and over from Eren’s mouth, a mouth that he forces open by drawing an arm behind Eren and pressing his hips forward and he gets to hear it, a second time, a third time, five and twenty as Levi fucks Eren hard, Eren’s dick rubbing against their bellies as Levi releases himself into Eren- Eren coming soon after, blinking against the light in this dark to him, wondering how it’d got there when it’s night- Levi presses his face up against Eren’s hair, kissing his brow- voice leveled and scarily controlled given what he’d just been doing earlier-

“I honestly don’t give a fuck Eren. I don’t give a fuck what your world expects and I don’t give a fuck what this one expects. Your name is my name. My name is your name- in the end isn’t that what we decided?”

The light he’d seen had it been the stars? They seem so dim, far and unreachable out in the sky, out beyond the tall thin pane of glass.

Eren swallows, digests- years of tradition and custom- what is expected of him before, isn’t expected of him now.

“I understand.”

He cups Levi’s face and kisses him, opens his mouth and lets Levi inside again, as much as he likes, protests when Levi pulls away. Levi kisses him again. More-

“But Levi, I want to marry you. I don’t only want my name to be your name.”

Levi sighs, sighs into Eren’s mouth as he kisses him again, hard, longer.

“You stupid brat, what do you think sharing a name means? Of course we’re going to get married.”

Eren still looks doubtful, Levi had been the one to say old customs of this world and the other do not need to be upheld. Still, Levi tells him.

“Let’s go to the capitol and have it done proper then.”

Eren shifts in his arms, nervous, like he’s about to be scolded. He really should be for being an excessively needy child. Eren then asks, confused.

“What you do you mean?”

Levi has long lost his patience.

“You really need everything broken down for you. Eren, fucking marry me already.”

Eren smiles against Levi’s mouth, the widest smile Levi’s ever felt.

"Yes sir!"

Eren is scolded for that sir.

\--

Erwin opens the letter as soon as he reaches his desk.

If Levi knew he didn’t even bother with a letter opener- well hopefully he’d never find out.

In small hurried script (for being a neat freak, and in need of order- his handwriting is a total mess), is Levi’s reply to Erwin’s concerns of what has been going on in the capitol, atop of updates of Hanji’s and his health, along with the expected dates of their visit… and a matter that Levi could not entrust to the post and would speak to Erwin about in person when he sees him.

Erwin thinks up twenty something possibilities about what that could mean, and one of them is correct.

Written in the same haste and manner as the rest of his writing at the end of the letter is his signature-

Levi Yeager.

After years of pestering him to choose a surname, Levi finally has.

This could only mean one thing.

Petra is extremely surprised but pleased at Erwin’s sudden visit, he apologises profusely though he’s come in at a right time (she’d just come back from some grocery shopping for dinner), she invites him in for tea (a plate piled with shortbread makes its way on the table).

“I’m happy to see you Commander Erwin, but I doubt this is merely a passing through your neighborhood visit.”

Erwin chuckles.

“It’s not.”

He shows Petra Levi’s letter, she was never good at reading his handwriting- she’d been one of the only on their squad brave enough to ask directly what Levi meant when she couldn’t understand orders or an explanation written on the board. He didn’t mind to give them verbally, she was always so polite and earnest.

Still is.

She also still has a hard time reading his handwriting, she only bothers to try to read the signature… a two part signature- when she does, a smile as bright and warm as the noon sun that filters from the garden into the window of her home lights her face.

“Could it be!”

Erwin nods.

Corporal is finally getting married.


	5. Chapter 5

When Petra sees Erd’s boat coming in she hurries forth.

“Hey! Petra be carefu- NNG.”

Distantly she hears from behind her, over the vast amount of boulders and timber and general debris that gets washed up from the sea that she’s skillfully and quickly hopping over- Auruo calling after her.

He’s taking forever being careful and the moment he let his guard down to scold her he’d bitten his tongue.

She knows it rather mean to think, but when reuniting with the others she’d rather he’d not have come. He's so fond of holing himself up in his metal shop he is practically a hermit now… but then the same could be said about most of them…

Her boots clunk against the wood of the dock. Guther waves at her as he throws some rope down to help tie the boat in place for the meanwhile. After she does that and greets Erd, giving him the large parcel of baked goods for him and Guther- who while fishermen, probably don’t want to eat just fish all the time- Hanji emerges from the lower quarters of the boat with a whoop and a holler, calling out a greeting so loud they can all hear it over the gulls.

The figure that follows behind her is Corporal Levi, he’s speaking in an extremely hushed tone to the hooded person he’s leading by the hand off the boat.

Erd can’t leave his boat unattended so it’s Guther who goes with them back to shore (he needs to pick up some supplies).

It’s not until they’re a ways from the sea, it distant behind them (Levi had carried the hooded person over all that debris Petra had jumped over moments before) Hanji chattering all the while about how the trip had been and how it’d been so long since she’s been to the mainland.

It’s not until the tall walls of the capitol can be seen in the distance that Levi turns his attention from the hooded figure to ask Auruo why he’s so quiet (Auruo had managed to stop the blood but didn’t want to risk the partially cleaned mess of it being visible to Corporal Levi) when Petra realises the hooded figure is wearing a very familiar mantle.

Hanji is helping the hooded person remove the blindfold that they’d also been wearing, Hanji tutting about what a rough ride it’d been, especially for a princess-

Petra moves forward in a rush, horrendously embarrassed.

She hadn’t expected Levi’s bride to already be with him and as a million questions tumble about her mind, where had they met, how had they met, how long had they known each other, from what far away nation had Levi taken a princess from?! She walks up to the hooded figure- excusing herself-

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Your Highness! I’m Petra Ral! I was a soldier in the militia that Corporal Levi- uhm- your betrothed- used to fight in too-”

Her hands clutched before her, had the figure not been royalty she’d have taken her hands and held them.

Instead her voice gets louder to make up for it.

“Please let’s get along!”

Petra looks up into the mouth of the hood.

Levi’s bride is…

Perhaps because her perception of height is askew.

A bit tall.

His brow narrowed and almost annoyed, shadowed beneath the hood.

His?

His voice is vexed.

“…Ms Hanji, look at the misunderstanding you’ve caused.”

Hanji is unrepentant, a hand to her head, an expression of “oh sorry~” on her face. Petra knows it well, and horrified at what mistake she could have made, looks at Hanji aghast, not daring to look at Corporal Levi who’s said nothing so far.

The hood is drawn back and the figure before her is that of a boy, and the issue isn’t on gender- but age- because this boy is-

“I’m very sorry Ms Petra, I’m not a princess or anything. Ms Hanji just likes to tease in a fashion I’m sure you’re familiar with. My name is Eren Yeager. It is a pleasure to meet you, I also hope we can get along.”

Petra’s embarrassment dissolves in half and she turns, quickly walking over to Corporal Levi and all of them are nearly stunned into silence as she says to Levi, almost scolding, more worried than anything. Drawing closer with every syllable.

“Corporal sir! What is this meaning of this? Where are this child’s parents? Have you gotten their blessing? Where on earth did you find-”

Eren moves to stand between her and Levi, concerned and alarmed that someone is raising their voice to Levi and not the other way around.

“Please wait a moment!”

Petra startled, relents, as Eren brings a hand to his chest, speaks almost imploringly to her, his eyes staring into her own-

“My parents are too far away to bless anything! Besides they can’t bless anything, they’re not gods! A-also despite my appearance I’m no longer a child!”

Hanji is scribbling a mile a minute with this new insight, trying very hard not to laugh. Not so much at Petra’s absolutely dumbstruck confused expression (as she tries to come up with a suitable reply) but rather Eren’s reaction to her. Levi sighs, calling out to Hanji.

“Shitty glasses, stop being a rude fuck already and explain to Petra the situation.”

Then to Eren as Hanji does so.

“Eren. What did I say about honorifics?”

Chasten, Eren looks away, “….I’m sorry, I forgot. It won’t happen again.”

Though they can see the capitol it’s still so far off.

\--

When they enter the city they must first go through the lower, poorer portions. The slums. It used to be so much dirtier, the people malnourished and hungry for everything. This is where Levi had come from until he made his way deeper into the city as an adolescent. Gangs, black markets, corruption and a mock up of stealing from the rich to give to the poor, it was sometimes like that but not always. What had mattered in the end was how fast and how precise his blade had been.

Passing under the large arches of the outermost gate he remembers before Queen Historia had come to reign how retched a place his home had been.

While there are still crooks, robbers and dangers- it’s nothing in comparison to what it’d been. The people are no longer starving and the place is even decorated for the Autumn Festival. That there is enough food for the poor they can not merely be grateful to not die, but they could rejoice at bounty, something they'd not known before.

It is all thanks to Queen Historia.

What gods had reigned, what aristocracy wished to fatten themselves, what glory that laid not merely to the individual but the masses, she conquered. A goddess of victory, the princess of the people, a bastard child of the old King and a priestess of the church, though both held her and only wished to use her, she cast them aside.

No, that isn’t accurate.

She captured them both, made them hers and changed them, and what did not wish to change, that that did not wish to repent she had shown no mercy.

That had been in wartime.

As they go through the lively streets, early morning light blazed into afternoon, Eren looks about amazed at the amount of people and the stalls of food, the intricate buildings, the worn stairs and pathways that don’t seem to end. Like the inside of some caves and coral formations he’d explored. But these are all made by people, and that amazes him.

He’d marveled at the fields too, some still having wheat cut from them, how like the sea the land seemed endless. Since the island was small and covered primarily in woods he’d not known the surface could look like this.

Hanji excitedly steps back beside Eren who’s walking aside Levi. Asking him excitedly what he thinks and taking notes on whatever he manages to say.

Guther leads the way, hoping nothing he needs is out of stock, and Hanji moves to speak to Auruo, shows him the interesting blueprint she'd found for a device that is supposed to make people fly. She’s added a few things, changes here and there but she thinks the general idea still remains and it could work (even better now), she just wants to know if Auruo has the capabilities to make what she was asking. It’d take a lot of skill with metal after all- she’ll pay well, it won't be hard for her to get the funding from the Queen.

This blueprint is from the archives, the very archives where she and Levi had found out about the superhuman-beast experiments.

Petra walks behind them all.

Watches their backs.

Only one at this moment dons the Wings of Freedom.

It is customary when you start courting to give your intended your mantle, but after you become engaged the bride is supposed to wear a mantle of her choosing. It can be newly bought from a tailor or a second or many more hand passed down in the family. Most often it is bought nowadays, by the groom to show he can provide.

Is Corporal Levi being tight about money as usual- she muses on this, warmly, remembering their days fighting in the militia. How they’d all looked up to him, how they still do.

They’d sworn an oath together.

An oath even now that cannot be broken.

This beautiful, cruel world.

They would protect it and fly high on wings of freedom.

Petra jumps when Corporal Levi turns to check on her.

“Petra. What are you doing so far back there, are you feeling alright?”

She’d seen it many times, how considerate the Corporal actually is but being on the receiving end never ceases to fluster her. Considering she had only gotten married recently, she could tell his concern is also an inquiry not to just on her health but the possible state of health of her union with her husband. To be more direct, if she isn’t feeling well that’d be of concern but if she isn’t feeling well because she is also with child they need to act more delicately.

It also always amazes her the amount of direct Corporal Levi can be is just the same amount about how discreet he is.

Petra hurries forth once more.

“I am fine sir! Thank you!”

As they go deeper into the city, more people are out and more people recognize them.

Children trail about, weaving about their legs, calling to them, throwing dried flowers- the Autumn Festival is to be celebrated tonight and even the heroes of the militia are in the streets! They babble about them, not to receive reply but to exalt their wonder. Older children watch them from the side lines and adults glance over either with appreciative recognition or familiarity, hollering greetings and thanks. It’s been a while.

Petra knows Corporal Levi would have rather avoided this but still he waves back when waved to, not with nearly the same enthusiasm as Hanji nor Auruo, Guther or she understandably. This was never his sort of thing.

When they’d entered the arch all the way back at the entrance, Levi had drawn Eren’s hood up and while Eren had no part in this festive recognition, the mantle he wore that bore the militia’s ensign is unmistakable and the people call to him as well.

If Levi had wanted to avoid this he could have forced Eren to not wear the mantle.

He’d tried.

It is another battle Levi had lost. Hanji had heard it even up on deck, discussing with Erd on how it’d been lucky of him to not have been out that stormy night Levi had had to use a different ship to return to the island.

That was the time Levi had met Eren. Erd and Guther didn’t believe her at first when she told them he’d originally been a merman but then Guther remembered a rumor he’d heard back in the city. Indeed, though she’d been quick, those of her assistants she’d expelled had either seen or figured it out. The figure, the creature Levi had brought, both half covered in blood.

No doubt their curiosity is burning.

But are the flames of such curiosity as hot as hers?

Absolutely not!

Still they’d have to be careful, even with his legs, there are qualities about Eren that are abnormal. To the unsuspecting it’d be oddity, but to those searching- it’d be a sure giveaway.

Levi had wanted Eren to not wear the mantle, but since it is cold and his, there hadn’t been any way to convince Eren to give it up, even for a day. Hanji remembers hearing something about spoiled children needing to be punished when she decided going to speak with Guther on the opposite end of the deck was a good idea. Erd couldn’t leave where he was but that wasn’t her concern.

They pass by a fruit stand. Petra buys Eren an apple.

Hanji returns to trying to convince Auruo to take on this commission of hers, Petra steps in besides Corporal Levi who asks of her to look after Eren who has eaten the apple at a surprising pace, he even eats the core before they can tell him not to.

When they get to the castle Levi has to go see Erwin.

They have an audience with the Queen.

He can’t leave Eren to Hanji alone and Guther will be departing back to the ship soon having made his purchases. While Guther would have liked to see Commander Erwin too he needs to get back.

Auruo no doubt had come out from his work merely because he'd been feeling a bout of loneliness… only to be wrangled now into doing more work. He finally agrees to the sum Hanji has been raising with no limitation. Resigned.

After passing through the centre of the town where the most decorations are and festivities will be, and drawing nearer to the castle, the nobility that do bother to greet them are highly respectful, those who had bent the knee through force are silent.

All of them in the militia had gained rank and recognition through no name, but their skills and victories on the battlefield.

“Leave it to me!” Petra replies to Levi, cheerfully.

She definitely won’t let Hanji get out of hand and she’ll somehow manage to get Auruo to help however unwilling he is, especially since the stress of work that isn't pertaining to only his interest is chaining him down.

Levi nods to her, he’s relied on her strength often.

“I know I can count on you.”

As they near the castle gates.

Eren’s mouth gaping at how big the castle is, the castle grounds are surely beyond those walls. Petra steps in beside Eren. Levi explains to Eren that he is allowed to go explore the rest of the city with the others while he takes care of something. That something he explained beforehand back on the ship so Eren wouldn’t be alarmed when they arrived. Eren did sulk a lot onboard when he'd understood that Corporal wouldn’t be with him the whole time. Before, Eren had been complacent, quiet on the trip, from hearing the sea from above but not allowed to see it- all until Levi had told him what was to be done when they reached the capitol and had also asked for the mantle.

If Eren is to stay on the surface Levi’s never getting it back.

This rationale Levi discovers is more than enough.

As Levi is allowed through the castle gates they all give him a salute. Outside the walls they are old comrades, inside the city they are soldiers once more in each other’s presence.

Yes, Levi can count on them to protect Eren while he takes care of this.

The other consequences and aftermath of Erwin summoning him that time ago, to once more fulfill his duty, to kill the enemy-

Levi turns back to look at Eren, the only one not saluting. He's curiously looking at the others, wondering if he should follow suit.

Levi tells him, “Eren. I’ll see you soon.”

As his footsteps carry him forth Eren’s reply is the one he could not properly give in the cove-

“Take care, Levi!”

The gates close behind him, walking down that long stretch of land, a beautiful garden flourishing in careful symmetry. Roses, roses, roses-  


Erwin is waiting for him before the throne room where Queen Historia waits for them inside.

“Are you ready?”

Erwin asks him.

Levi almost sighs.

“It’s me who should be asking you that.”

They enter the throne room together side by side, step in tune with the other despite the difference of height, marching.

\--

Like the free blue skies.

Are the eyes of Queen Historia who looks upon them, almost hurt, almost offended.

They bow before her, upon one knee, arms folded one in the back the other over their chest with fists at their hearts, heads lowered and they do not rise until she permits them to and allows them to speak.

By her side is her most loyal Knight, Ymir, Swift Wing is her nickname. Like Levi and many others in the militia she carries no surname so a nickname was given.

She is strong but her greatest strength is her speed, while not always the greatest fighter, her level of strategic reasoning and the number of times she quickly and accurately was able to relay information from and over enemy lines to them had been crucial to their victory.

Within the city she is considered a hero just as the soldiers of the militia.

But in the outskirts, in the smaller villages that are also part of this Kingdom, she is also feared and considered to be a witch.

What horrors the people not protected by the walls had had to face alike to the soldiers in times of war- that they knew something the rest of them did not…

Their fear fueled by the people of the mountains, the hunters, the people who clung to the old gods and were still in support of the abolished church. Who called for them to worship the gods once more and not be cursed, and not sin- as Queen Historia’s reign called them to.

They’d rose up in rebellion, even taming (summoning they’d said) a great beast to fight alongside them. They would have invaded and killed many within the city given the opportunity, on their mission to overthrow the queen but Erwin had seen to it that that would not happen. To swiftly, with as little casualties as possible- defeat the enemy, he’d called their strongest soldier to deal with them.

Indeed, alone Levi had been enough for them.

They are hunters of beasts, practically beasts themselves, with no order, no training, what were they to Levi’s blades?

It is for this that they are before the Queen today.

She rises, the skirts of her deep blue dress flutter about her beneath the majestic fur lined mantle.

Just as she is gold and blue, so are her clothes. Her crown.

“I ask of you, Commander Erwin Smith- why did you order the attack on Dauper Village when I had not given you permission to do so?”

It is not just Queen Historia had not given permission, she’d not been asked for it. This itself could be treason. But Queen Historia even after this, trusts them as she suspects them. It is why she has them have an audience with her instead of an actual trial.

Erwin respectfully bows to her once more, a deep inclination of his head before looking her square in the eyes, his hair dark gold in comparison to how fair she is.

In all meanings of the word.

“Your Majesty, I merely acted within the limits of my occupation. I exist to protect you, and the Dauper Village was seeking to kill you. I chose what I thought to be the most effective and quickest means to make sure that did not happen.”

Queen Historia is kind.

“…I understand. Then, I ask of you Corporal Levi, why did you act on these orders that I had not approved?”

Levi bows in the same fashion Erwin had before replying.

“He is my superior. I am required to follow his orders.”

Ymir is glaring at him. Stating this obvious answer that Historia knows already, this answer is not the one she seeks.

Levi elaborates.

“I also trust him. It may seem what he has done is cruel, but the cruelty that your people would have faced at the hands of these traitors would have been intolerable. I believe even with the current circumstances that this course of action has been for the best.”

They had done their duty.

This Historia cannot deny.

She is grateful to them, but what of this kind world she has created she wishes to maintain and protect.

They know this, they will sully themselves forever for it so she not need to.

She hates this tragedy and fights against it.

She will not punish them, she’d merely wanted to know why they’d done what they’d done, and if that in anyway could help the impending retaliation of what remained of Dauper Village. Those who’d not run into battle, those who did not act in treason but still commit themselves to it.

Closing her eyes, opening them only after she comes out of her contemplation. Her decision.

“Very well. You are dismissed.”

They’re leaving, when she calls out to Corporal Levi.

A couple steps down from her throne, Ymir escorting her out as well.

“Uhm,” the Queen starts, her determined, serious expression of before softened and even almost shy as she smiles- “I heard you are getting married. Congratulations Corporal Levi.”

She looks even a little nervous.

Though she’s the Queen.

Without a change in expression, Levi stops, and turns back to her, a hand over his heart in salute as he bows his head low to her.

“Thank you very much Your Majesty.”


	6. Chapter 6

Ymir scolds her.

“What was that! Weren’t you going to scold them good! Give them hell for the shit they caused!”

They’re sitting in the back garden, having tea and some lunch. Sasha has crammed at least four sandwiches in her mouth all at once. Ymir turns on her.

“And you! You were late and couldn’t get a word in! Didn’t you want to tell them off, it’s your village they attacked you know!”

Sasha’s reply is incomprehensible beneath her hurried chewing.

Krista speaks up, that she will take all the blame obvious in the tone of her voice-

“Don’t scold her Ymir! It’s my fault, I wasn’t as strict as I should have been.”

Ymir holds a hand to her head sighing.

Krista sighs as well, “Even though they’re my subjects they’re still much older than I, they know this world better than its ruler… I’m pathetic aren’t I? I got so nervous …I don’t know what it is about Corporal Levi… his face is always so scary…”

Ymir looks like she’s about to lose it.

“Krista! You are the Queen!”

Krista refills Ymir’s empty cup, expression serious once more.

“You’re really kind Ymir. Getting all angry on our accounts even though you agree with them don’t you? You also think it was for the best that the rebels of the Dauper Village are dead.”

Ymir finishes the entire refill in one breath before replying.

“That’s right. They got what was coming to them. I would have done it myself if those old men had been a second slower.”

Krista’s voice is almost scandalized, “Ymir!”

Ymir glares at her, setting her cup down roughly- “What else is there to do? You have any better ideas? Don’t tell me you think we could have talked to those traitors? It’s not possible, they can’t be reasoned with- hey stop cramming your mouth for one second Sasha- let’s hear it from you. What should have been done?”

Krista has been getting angry not just from her own ideals, but also for Sasha who’d come from Dauper Village. No doubt she too is hurting over this ordeal. Though there were, like those of her family, who didn’t mind and also advocated for change, the acceptance of the death of the gods, and didn’t mind slow assimilation to the rest of modern society… there were still many of them stuck in the old ways. She had been like that before she’d met Krista and Ymir.

She’d actually been fighting with Krista on their first encounter.

Krista had escaped from the convent she’d been raised in, wanting to see the world and not knowing how dangerous it actually was outside the city walls. Sasha and her village, as loyal followers of the religion had been sent to retrieve her but Krista had gone beyond, into a forbidden part of the woods they didn’t think she, a person from the city, a person who’d never seen the forest- the wild before would be so bold.

Within the deep forest Krista had met Ymir.

Tangled in the trees from her failed flight.

Ymir is the last of her kind.

Far up in the highest of the mountains where no people could reach, had lived her clan.

Half human, half bird.

They’d lived up there in isolation for as long as she could remember, never venturing beyond the skies to the surface below. Their numbers dwindled drastically, they found the end of their race came easy when none of their generation gave birth to any males and the other males too old or dying out before offspring could be made.

Until it was just Ymir.

She decided instead of dying all alone up in the mountains never knowing anything really she would venture to the surface. There was no one left to tell her no right?

There was a cave that everyone said to never go into, a witch’s potion had been left in there and if you drank it you would fall.

Indeed Ymir fell. She drank it and after so much flight, the closer she got to the surface the heavier her wings became, until the feathers started to peel off. She’d screamed, she’d yelled, roared, falling into the branches of the oddest trees she’d ever seen, fucking huge they were.

She was dying.

She thought.

Then, stuck in those branches, more than one limb broken and near all her feathers gone but still enough that she was not yet “human” she had met her.

Krista Lenz.

They’d all been so ugly Ymir thought, the lot of them- she realised this when she’d first set eyes on this girl, trembling but still moving, careful, rushed, to get her out though she was in the middle of escaping. She’d stopped, this girl.

To tend to her.

Ymir fell in love with her then, to her there is none more beautiful on this earth than her Krista.

Sasha had found them later and helped them hide.

An actual god had descended upon them.

At first Sasha had helped them because of the old ways. If Ymir a god, and Krista a priestess or nun of the religion her village so valued- then of course she had to help them. But if that were so why were they hiding from the village, why were they hiding from the church? The King that ruled them? When Sasha learned the details of Krista’s birth and what Ymir actually was- by then they’d become her friends and for that she protected them.

While Ymir lost her flight she was still amazingly strong and with this strength she decided, Krista who had saved her- she would protect her for the rest of her life.

Ymir was the first to swear an oath to her, to kill the gods and make Krista the Queen.

Sasha did second.

Especially after she learned of the truth of her village, of this world.

Long ago this world they sought to unite had been even more broken apart than it already was. To conquer it their ancestors had sought to become stronger- they merged with beasts. Ymir who came from the sky had come from people merged with birds, somewhere in the far off deep sea none could dream of reaching were men merged with fish and within these woods, Sasha’s ancestors. Before their powers waned they could take the form of wolves, bears, elks, creatures of the deep forest.

That is why they are hunters.

They uncovered this information in the ruins of an old laboratory deep in those woods.

They even hid there for some time before gathering their courage did they return.

They returned to the people calling for Historia, her flight from the city had made her known to them and soon the entire militia was on her side, so tired of the wars, of the famine, of their suffering so long ignored by the corrupt nobility.

The battle was long but not nearly as long as the war, finally, with Historia victorious-

Sasha takes a deep breath, her plate eaten clean.

“True, while it saddens me so many of my village were killed. I also think it was for the better. T-they would have killed you Ms Krista! Not all are accepting as my father. He’s trying to convince those whose family was killed to understand better.”

But if he can’t convince them…

Krista has her duty to uphold as a Queen, as Historia.

However much she would rather not like to rely on the militia anymore they exist to serve her.

\--

Petra had told Corporal Levi to leave it to her but after they’d departed she hadn’t realised just exactly what she was getting herself into. If Hanji had not been here perhaps it’d have been a little easier (but she’d begged and cried beforehand that if Levi didn’t let her witness Eren’s reactions to the city she was going to die or throw out all his black tea back at home, his choice) keeping track of the two of them seemed near impossible. It didn’t help that Eren was stupidly fast and overly curious on every little thing. Hanji indulging him- asking her own questions, some not entirely appropriate for public- anyone.

When it advances to that Petra draws them apart and tells Hanji Auruo needs to hear more about that contraption she wants to make. Auruo swearing at her that he doesn’t need to hear it for the nth time and oh how Petra begs to differ as she drags Eren with her into the nearest tailor.

While he politely listens to her and has stopped going everywhere (she’s never going to have children she almost decides after this) she figures having just been a bride herself to help Eren. He is going to wear the bride’s mantle right? She pictures Corporal Levi in one- that wouldn’t be so bad either!

None of the bride’s mantles for sale in this shop seem to please Eren, and it’s not that he wants to pick one out with Levi (who’d have to buy it) but, because he is so fond of the one he already has…

Boys are difficult, if she does end up having a kid please let it be a girl.

The day has grown late and with the evening the Autumn Festival celebration is underway. There’s feasting and drinking and most of all singing and dancing. Petra walks straight into Eren’s back as he suddenly stops at the entrance of the shop they’d just been about to exit, so overwhelmed from what’s happening outside. Not entirely sure, but excited. They had festivals back where he is from but not on this scale, never this chaotic, and never with so many people!

Petra takes his hand in order to advance (which is good so they don’t get lost in the crowd), determined on making it to where they promised they’d meet Corporal Levi and Commander Erwin but no matter how hard they try they end up getting caught in on the festivities along the way, the trailing line of dancing Eren cannot resist, he’s a fast learner, watching intensely the other dancers and mimicking them near perfectly, and what he lacks in experience he makes up with passion.

His interest is contagious and soon Petra is dancing along too, they get lost in this stream, not remembering where they’re supposed to be until a familiar figure aside her, twirls her out from the line- it is Commander Erwin. Levi has done the same with Eren who looks too happy to speak, practically intoxicated on joy, he’s trying to convince Levi to join him and go back into the line.

Petra looks to her sudden change in partner.

“Did all go well Commander?”

Erwin nods to her, “Nothing unexpected. How about you?”

Petra laughs, almost embarrassed, “Well, it wasn’t quite how I imagined it to be…”

She’d wanted on hearing the Corporal was to get married to help him with the preparations, most specifically that of his bride but considering who… what... his bride turned out to be that is rather-

Commander Erwin isn’t surprised at all. Corporal Levi has surely been pressed for information between here and the castle.

Erwin greets Eren by taking his hand in his, drawing it to his lips and placing upon it a kiss.

Had it been anyone else, that greeting would have cost the offender their head.

Eren draws his hand back, holding it about him, not sure what to do. He’s not experienced this human custom before and didn’t know it exists. Where he’s from to receive a kiss from someone after you’ve become promised to another is-

“Unforgivable!”

Spats are not uncommon even in the most happiest of times, so no one really pays any mind to Eren’s insulted yelling as he doubles back and crouches behind Levi as if Erwin were a fire- hands at Levi’s shoulders, using him as a shield.

Levi looks back at Eren, almost alarmed.

“What’s wrong Eren?”

Eren gapes at Levi having expected him to do something.

“W-well just now…I received a kiss from someone other than you, that’s not… I don’t like that…”

Levi turns back to Erwin, expression cross, but not as sour as it could be. Mermaids are fucking weird, hadn’t he kissed Eren in all sorts of places before Eren had allowed him to kiss him on the lips and here he was getting all flustered over a kiss to the hand.

This brat.

Levi tells Erwin not to do that again. Erwin sincerely apologises to Eren.

It isn’t unforgivable to Eren after all.

However.

It becomes so to Levi when Eren, still nervous- draws back on that habit Hanji had said he’d developed only after obtaining legs- he is biting at his hand again, that hand that Erwin had taken and-

Levi speaks to Erwin once more.

“Erwin even if it’s you, if you touch Eren again I’ll kill you.”

Levi grabs Eren’s wrist and pulls him away, searching for the nearest water spout.

Hanji has started writing in a new notebook having filled the other one.

“Are you sure you want them as house guests?”

She’s asking Erwin.

Erwin turns to her, chuckling, “Levi hasn’t changed at all has he.”

Then.

“ …so, that’s a mermaid- how do you find him Hanji?”

She laughs at him now, boisterous. Giving a wink.

“Absolutely fascinating of course!”

After washing Eren’s hands and his own do they return. The festivities in full swing they decide to stay out for them. Eren unsure about what he’s eating half the time and no room to ask when either Hanji (curious to see if he’ll like it) and Levi (trying to choose only what Eren likes) always have something for him.

Auruo is horrified when the barbecue he’s eating leaves tough stains to wash off. Petra enjoys eating cake she hasn’t made herself for once (was it better?! Or was it the high of the festival making her doubt, romanticizing her experience- Erwin assures her otherwise). They take to dancing in the final hours, they’ll dance to morning light.

The more energetic upbeat dances, Petra or Hanji is Eren’s partner, the more traditional ones Levi dances with Eren, the oddly out of place for this not be the noble court waltz that comes on has Erwin and Levi showing off what grace they still maintained. Petra even allows Auruo to dance with her until he asks her if she’s regretting anything and then she kicks his shin, Corporal Levi taking his place. Hanji isn’t teaching Eren the right steps to one of the particular dances and Eren becomes irritated with this so Erwin ends up teaching him the proper ones and Levi becomes Hanji’s partner. Even though Levi had said he’d kill Erwin if he touches Eren again so long as Eren is fine with where Erwin is touching (the hands, the hip) then-

The last dance is a traditional one. Levi is almost grateful. Eren’s face flushed and happy that they can dance together again and having learnt most of the important parts can they finally dance with ease. Confidence. Coordination. Perhaps a bit more serious about it than the others present, when the dancing draws to a close as the sun starts to appear- the people all sway together in song- to sing their Kingdom’s anthem-

As everyone sings in unison, over and over until the sun has started to rise, joyously they sing and once Eren has learned the lyrics he too adds his voice to their own-

He can’t resist.

So long has it been since he’s sung in a group.

With as many voices as there is Levi thought perhaps it’d be alright for Eren to sing, to deny him to sing would be more cruelty, it was already enough that he not allow him to ever see the sea, to deny him this as well-

But it is a mistake.

Above their own voices the people hear him, quieting until it is almost him alone.

Something inhuman.

Something too beautiful.

Something they can never have, never be.

Levi has not seen the people weep as this, not even since the day he and the rest of the militia returned home, victorious, saviors of the common folk, Queen Historia’s champions.

The old king is dead, the gods have fallen, all that remains is their freedom.

When Eren sings, they cannot help but listen.

It’s ironic isn’t it- he has no freedom to swim in the ocean as he did before, there are limitations to the fields however vast, and the forests however deep they seem are nothing in comparison to the depths of the sea.

The imprisoned singing a song of freedom-

Levi is ready. He will carry Eren out of here if he must. If anyone suspects or if anyone tries anything. He sees the others stand at the ready, Erwin and Hanji especially tense and prepared, scanning the crowd for anyone who might know.

Gradually silence is falling, before it can fall completely and Eren's voice stands utterly alone, before anyone else can hear Eren further Levi pulls Eren to him by the collar of his mantle and kisses him. Whatever sound Eren makes is not song now, hushed and impatient, when the anthem ends, the last Gloria exhaled or caught, then does Levi draw back. Eren almost apologises but Levi interrupts him.

“Just this once.”

He had allowed anyone to hear Eren sing other than he.

\--

They will stay for the rest of autumn and perhaps winter. Hanji can’t decide if she wants to stay for the entirety of winter. Once it falls she can either not leave for the island or not leave the island. They’re staying at Erwin’s place, a mansion far past the city, near much of the farms for grain. By it are the woods their Queen and her knight are rumored to have met.

When Levi had told Eren he wanted to do this proper he had meant official documents, but Erwin (and even Petra!) are set on an actual ceremony and given how Eren enjoys celebrations… it won’t be bad.

While he’d like it done already, and was considering a wedding in the winter Petra convinces him to wait for spring. Eren loves flowers doesn’t he? To have colourful blossoms decorate wherever they choose to say their vows- wouldn’t that be wonderful?

Asking Eren about it, Eren asks Levi if they can wait.

“It isn’t a problem, though staying past winter here might be taxing.”

For Erwin or for them?

Levi almost chuckles.

Within the room he usually takes when he stays at Erwin’s place he sees it’s been cleaned in preparation of his arrival. There’s no dust and the bedding is fresh. The windows you can see through clearly. Even the chest at the foot of the bed that had his few possessions he’d not bothered to bring to Hanji’s remain and is polished.

He opens up the chest.

Eren looks on curiously from where he sits on the bed. He’s warm and content. They’d just gotten out from the bath and were preparing to go to sleep finally when Levi had decided he wanted to inspect his room further.

The mantle Eren usually wears is hanging over the back of the chair at the small table by the veranda. They don’t open it up due to the chilly air, though if it’s warm later it’ll be nice to sit out there and have a meal.

From the chest Levi pulls out what had been supposedly his mother’s mantle, more a veil really. If she’d stolen it or if it’d been given to her, he doesn’t know. It might not have even been his mother’s though that’d what he’d been told in the orphanage growing up.

The mantle is a deep blue, shifting darker or lighter, near black depending on the lighting. Decorated with specks of gold shaped as stars, it is the night sky that Levi drapes over Eren’s head, his shoulders. He cloaks him in it. That which holds so much wonder to Eren.

“You didn’t find something else did you? When you went with Petra.”

Eren shakes his head.

“The first one you gave me is enough.”

“Do you not like this one too?”

“That's not it. If you’ll allow me this mantle I shall accept it as well.”

“Greedy.”

Eren smiles, voice oddly soft- “You’ll allow me it won’t you?”

Levi cups Eren’s chin, and holds his face up from beneath the veil so he may look upon it.

“Of course.”

Eren laughs, startling Levi’s fingers away as his breath catches, his heart pounding-

“It’s the night sky is it not? It matches perfectly.”

“Matches?”

Eren looks up to him fully, gaze staring past his shoulder. Outside the day is upon them, the sky irregularly blue for this time of season. How had Levi looked to Eren? Standing where he could see, Levi outlined by it, this sky, the light of day shadowing his every move, his every action, his every expression- how had that made Eren feel? If Eren carries the night sky then Levi carries the day.

Levi picks Eren up, the veil still over him. Eren gives a yelp at the sudden movement. Opening the doors out to the veranda, Levi carries Eren out, lifting him up against the day sky, his night- before bringing him back down. Eren’s arms fold about Levi in an embrace before he draws the veil over the both of them and night comes early.


	7. Chapter 7

They’re still in the midst of autumn, staying at Erwin’s place by the woods.

Atop of vast fields, endless gardens, there’s an orchard.

Mike and Erwin are harvesting the last of the apples, up in the trees- when Mike gives a hard sniff.

Erwin turns to him, “What is it Mike?”

Mike is thoughtful as he decides whose scent it is. Usually he is quick to tell if the scent belongs to a person, a place, or a concept- the who and what falling into comprehension once he determines that but recently the scent of a familiar person has been warped and overtaken by another, unusual in that it is foreign to them- so now it could be either. Still, an answer must be given.

“It’s Levi.”

Mike tells him.

Erwin continues to look at Mike, pondering.

“It took you that long to determine that?”

Erwin has no scent. Hanji smells like her lab and anticipation. Erd the wood of his ship, Guther the cotton from the sheets of his family home, Petra of flour, Auruo with his metal works the hint of fire and iron, and Levi- once had he carried the metallic scent not of any steel but blood, stains washed over and over again meant to fade, but could never- blood on cobblestones, on the walls- stones. Rock. But it’s dwindled, eroded, this scent- worn away from the water of the ocean that has lapsed over it, over and over, for longer than they’ve all been. The scent Levi has now is not his own. This new scent older than creation that encompasses his is that of the sea.

Of a drowning man.

A sharp lulling salty scent, that briefly clings to fishermen in passing (for one day they may have this fate) but does not embrace them like it does Levi, clings and holds onto him, possesses him regardless of his will.

Mike smiles a bit, crooked, if Levi could determine his own scent right now he’d probably not like it at all, like the faded blood, he’d find it uncleanly- he’d try to wash it away.

(But how? There is no greater body of water than the sea. You cannot wash away the sea.)

This scent is that boy’s.

Levi halts beneath them, looking up into the trees, about to call up to them should they not notice him a moment longer (odd, with Mike’s nose and Erwin’s intuition), Hanji comes up clunking behind them carrying her and Auruo's and who knows who else's work. Eren in tow.

She’d wanted to ask Eren something and it’d kept him back from accompanying Levi into the orchard. This few minutes delay isn’t anything in comparison to the delay Levi is receiving from those above.

Levi calls to them finally.

“Hey. Erwin. Mike. Are you done yet? Are there enough apples for us to bring to Petra?”

They’re going into the capitol this morning. Or so is the plan. It’ll take them nearly half the day to reach it even on horseback.

Erwin calls down to Levi.

Pointing to the trunk of the tree they’re in.

“There’s already a sack ready for you to take, there are a lot more left than we thought.”

Levi glances over to Hanji who hollers in greeting. Eren retrieves the sack of apples ready for them. Mike’s nose scrunching up so hard; Erwin has to almost bite his lip to not laugh at the sight.

“It’s not heavy is it?”

Erwin asks Eren, who looks up from beneath his hood. Pulls it back now under the shade of the trees.

“I do not find it particularly so. Besides Mr Levi will have to carry a much heavier burden.”

Eren is referring to the incomplete metal equipment Hanji has dragged out with her. Her and Levi had been speaking, Hanji complaining Levi wanting too much back of the specimen he’d given her to begin with- but hands the majority of it over anyway if she doesn’t want her life forfeit. Hands it over along with the equipment she’s created and had heavy modifications on. They’ll deliver it to Auruo after their visit with Petra.

Hanji turns her attention to Eren but is speaking to all of them.

“The truth is it’s actually not that heavy at all. It’s meant to keep you in air so it must be light. That’s the problem. While it’s rather light now, it’s still far too heavy. I have another set with the same problem that Auruo’s working on at the moment.”

Glancing from Eren to Levi-

“I want you two to bring it back with you after dropping this one off. That other one should be much lighter.”

Hanji looks pleased with herself, nearly chuckling from behind a hand.

“That sack of apples might even be heavier than the equipment, well, that is to say it is right now. Can’t say much for what it might be once your journey is over~”

Levi sharply turns to Eren, reminded.

“Don’t. Those are all for Petra. You can only eat some of them if she allows you.”

Eren’s face turns a little red, as he defends himself- “I-I- I wasn’t eating any of them! …yet, true I was thinking one or two could not be missed… can we not take some for the ride?”

Ever since Eren had tried the red fruit he’s gotten more than a little addicted to them. Hence Erwin’s comment of surprise of how many still remained in the orchard.

“No.”

Is Levi’s final answer. They’re going to eat some anyway at Petra’s (who will no doubt bake them, or bake them into something wonderful) and besides-

“You eat a damn ridiculous amount of them already. It makes your mouth too sweet.”

Hanji is laughing at them as they depart to the stalls where the horses are kept. Laughter dying down, when she remains. Erwin asks if she would like to help them finish picking the rest of the apples. She declines and waits until they’re finished and on the ground aside her before telling Erwin what Eren had said to her.

“When you all go hunting, the only differences he’s noticed of these woods is there are a lot more animals than the woods (understandably) of my place.”

Erwin presses on for more information.

“Anything else in particular?”

Hanji turns to Mike.

“You’ve smelt it haven’t you? Something odd?”

Mike sets down the basket of apples harvested.

“Besides that boy’s scent? Yeah. There is another. But it’s too far off to be dangerous.”

Erwin looks over the both of them before looking over into the woods, if there is anyone by a gaze alone that could determine the actual state of things, it’s he. He’s trying. Thinking.

“In other words if it draws closer it’s not a matter of determining if it’s dangerous or not. It is danger if it draws closer. Did Eren notice it?”

Hanji has her arms crossed, a hand waving as she answers further, remembering-

“He noticed it, but he doesn’t know what’s usually in these woods to begin with. He doesn’t register it’s an abnormality like he is. He probably won’t until whatever it is decides to show itself to us.”

Erwin determines this abnormality has a possibility of two targets, them or Eren.

(Or should that be ‘and’?)

Her voice is almost concerned as she asks Erwin, as they stand beneath the shade of trees in noon light-

“Erwin, Levi doesn’t know does he? Why haven’t you told him yet?”

Erwin looks directly at her, apologetic.

“I intend to. It’s difficult. As much as I know that this problem cannot be resolved without both of their cooperation. I don't want to dampen Levi's happiness. I want him to enjoy it for as long as he can.”

Erwin starts packing away the other apples. Mike moving to do the same only after asking-

“When will that be Erwin? The time to resolve this problem.”

Erwin ties the strings to the bag, a little tighter than he intended.

“Soon.”

\--

When Eren had first encountered a horse they’d been tied to the carriage Mike had been driving. The four of them rode this carriage after the Autumn Festival’s end and many nights spent in celebration and many days slept away at various, very full inns for there were many travelers and tourists and people from the smaller towns of this kingdom that’d come into the capitol to celebrate.

The second time had been when Erwin and Levi decided to go hunting for the first time since their reunion; they didn’t always take the horses. Levi had intended to have Eren ride on his horse with him, but Erwin said with both their weight that’d be too much strain. Eren is a fast learner isn’t he? Then he could learn to ride a horse… it is not a problem.

Eren had been extremely alarmed.

Horses were much bigger than the deer he’d encountered in the woods, and it always unnerved him when an animal had four legs. So many legs! Not only that but of great strength. Their speed comparable to his own. Hanji says when the equipment she’s working on is completed it’ll make a capable person of that speed. As you need a certain amount of trained muscle to be able to correctly and efficiently use it, this equipment.

For now horses will do as a means around.

It’d taken some convincing (meaning Eren asked if it indeed capable of him and after giving  _why_  it be so Levi had told Eren he  _will_ ), eventually Eren had allowed Levi to hoist him up on the horse (the least shy one) they’d determined he’d not have a problem with. Unfortunately while the horse wasn’t unnerved by what inhuman characteristics some of the other horses detected in Eren, its outgoing nature had caused it to set off immediately, happy to be out of its stall. Both Erwin and Levi had started at this. Both trying to catch up on either side- momentarily, then drawing back when they found the alarm gone from Eren’s features, be it not fear but an unrivaled euphoria. He rode past them, around them, slowing down only when he’d rode up and down the length of the field some and back.

Levi still had to assure Erwin, seeing and not expecting such reckless and abandoned riding, that even if Eren fell from his horse he would not die.

They’re taking horses again. Levi has switched the equipment for the apples and has them with him on his horse, while Eren almost sulkily (since he cannot be trusted) has Hanji’s equipment latched onto his steed as the equipment is indeed lighter.

They’re a ways from Erwin’s place now and can see the outlines of the capitol in the distance. They’d started at a gallop but slowed to a walk to look about at the fields, the day not unbearably bright to most as noon passes. Even so, Eren has his hood up, as he surveys the fields again. The human world is still too bright to him. Of these fields he asks what sort of food, plant, fruit they’d bore. If they’ll bore anything at all.

Levi sometimes able to answer, sometimes really unable to not. He’s not a farmer.

When they reach the capitol they’ll stay at the inn of Dita Ness, an old comrade of Levi and the others. Dita used to tend their horses all the time, and the inn he runs now takes good care of not only its guests but (no surprise) their horses.

Eren had been hanging back behind Levi, once again so engrossed by the scenery he is spacing out.

He urges his horses forward until they’re side by side, since the city is much closer now he decides, trying very hard not to let the excitement show too much on his face as he asks-

“How about this? Levi.”

Levi turns to Eren. Eren has been unable to drop the honourifics when they’re with other people but alone he is fine about it. Levi has decided to allow this. It isn’t good for others to see Eren’s often embarrassed expression when he’s tried to say Levi’s name alone when they'd not only each other’s company. It isn’t a sight Levi is willing to share.

“How about what?”

Eren perks up, having been acknowledged- he says-

“Let’s race! It shall be fun, on horseback it’s a fair game right?”

Levi doesn’t look like he objects or will, “Is that so? Are you very sure?”

“There’s only one way to find out!”

Eren gives his horse a kick, resuming a gallop once more, quicker, wilder- Levi following in pursuit. When he does not catch up but stays behind Eren. Eren glances behind him, his hood thrown back-

“Hey hey, isn’t this supposed to be a race?”

While Levi has put effort into speeding up, he doesn’t seem interested at all in flying ahead of Eren. Levi has more experience riding a horse. Eren had expected he be overtaken easily, had almost wanted Levi to turn, bored yet victorious and tell him how childish this is or something though he’d won but it appears he’s letting Eren win. This is no race Eren sees, it’s a chase if anything.

Turning forward, Eren is almost pouting, rather annoyed.

He should have expected this, and decides, turning back once more. He calls out to Levi-

“What’s wrong, getting old?”

It takes less than three seconds for Levi to catch up alongside him and grab at his reigns. Slowing them down taking much longer but when he does, bringing them to a still, surely the horses grateful, they’ll get water soon the city not too far, travelers near on other routes.

Three more seconds atop of the first and many minutes pass, it takes for Levi to grab at the front of Eren’s mantle after pulling his hood over his head once more and kiss him.

Twice, a third time, four until Eren is pushing him away, telling Levi he understands.

Eren apologises, along with that he comments- “Sometimes you’re rather childish.”

Levi pinches at his cheek.

“Oh? The same can be said about you though I suppose you have the excuse of still being a child.”

Eren is pouting, super annoyed.

Brow furrowed he gently knocks his forehead against Levi’s. Frustrated Levi won't play correctly, Eren reaches as he places both his hands over Levi’s shoulders to stretch forward to kiss a fifth time. Eren pushing his tongue in Levi’s mouth, satisfied with what he set out to do when he feels Levi’s hand at the back of his neck and the other in his hair.

Drawing back, breathless.

Levi relents.

“Ah, that’s right. You've told me before. How much you mermaids love to race.”

They race to the city.

What prize there be, had by the victor.

\--

They must apologise to Petra for arriving later than agreed.

With the amount of apples they’ve brought they’re forgiven.

(Apples or no she would have forgiven them anyway.)

If not for the horses (they stopped at the inn and checked them in there), they might have taken Petra’s invitation to stay at her place while in the city, or maybe not because if they accepted her invitation to stay at her place that’d open up the possibility and even obligation to stay at other… less accommodating abodes of fellow comrades. Erd was too close to the sea for Levi’s taste, Guther had many many younger siblings, and the smoke from Auruo’s work was sure to no doubt be utterly filthy. Every time they visit, Petra makes her offer nonetheless. It’s hard to refuse when there is always delicious bread, cookies, cake, and all sorts of pastry on their visits.

She’s going to bake their wedding cake; they’ve also been trying potential possibilities for it with their visits. This time there’s a lemon cake, a chocolate spice one, and then later an apple cake that Levi has to prevent Eren from eating the entirety of.

She also invites Eren to come help her bake (it isn’t only cake apples are good in), along with her husband who should still be manning the shop. The kitchen is free, they bake primarily all their stock in the early morning. To be honest they had a late start today so they were staying open later, it was actually a good thing the two of them had been late as well…

Petra is listing off all the possible dishes for apples they can make that she knows. Eren’s eyes practically sparkling when Levi interrupts, to say he’ll be leaving Eren in her care once more. He must deliver Hanji’s equipment to Auruo.

He doesn’t speak of it with the usual hint of ire that often is present. Eren looks over to him almost wondering about it. They both see him off at the door.

Levi is concerned the wedding cake will end up having to be the apple one, won’t it be difficult with the change of seasons?

Eren is asking Petra as such in the kitchen. She’d just finished teaching him how to put on an apron.

Petra is laughing.

“It’s fine! You can always preserve them in jars and eat them later. You have to cook them, and the jars look as such-”

She pulls one down from the shelf, shows Eren.

“We can preserve some now if you like.”

\--

Levi drops off Hanji’s equipment and picks up the indeed much lighter set Auruo has been working on. Auruo hurriedly, but thoroughly washes his hands and face and hands again when Levi arrives. He asks if Hanji wants this set the same and Levi hands Auruo the set of instructions he was also given along with-

“I have a favour to ask of you.”

Auruo looks like all his organs have shot up and are caught in his throat.

It takes a few moments for him to collect himself.

“W-what is that you're saying Corporal Levi?”

Levi pulls out a handkerchief from the inner pocket of his suit’s jacket, places it on one hand before unfolding it to reveal what Hanji had been so unwilling to give up.

Even Auruo has to draw a breath in amazement. Like gems, they shine. Auruo almost mistakes them for such.

They’re Eren’s scales.

One missing, it is the one Hanji has been allowed to keep.

Levi will not need all the ones he possesses for what he wishes to be done.

“I want you to make rings of these. Can you do it?”

While highly touched, flattered, and beyond the expectancies of his own dreams, Auruo has never thought Corporal Levi would ask a favour of him (they’re soldiers, they’re ordered, but no longer are they on the battlefield); Auruo honestly doesn’t think he can.

“I don’t know Corporal. I’ve never worked with jewels before.”

Levi looks at Auruo then back to Eren’s scales, realising the easily made mistake.

“Ah. They look as such don’t they. They’re actually more akin to steel. You should not have a problem.”

The product of their ancestor’s, seeking to create a being half fish and stronger than any monster. Eren’s scales are hard enough that an average blade would break on impact.

Levi picks one of the scales up.

“Here.”

He places it in Auruo’s hand who still can’t believe Corporal Levi is asking anything of him that doesn’t involve putting a blade in someone’s gut.

“What do you think?”

Auruo looks it over, tells the Corporal to wait one second as he tests it out, listens to what it sings when hot iron strikes it, Auruo determines- with more excitement than he’d wanted to display-

“It’s possible!”

Levi relinquishes a few more scales.

Auruo will have to look a little into how to make rings, and he’ll need to measure for both their sizes the next time they visit…

Finding that satisfactory, Levi nods and tells him not to fuck up, all in the same breath as thanking him.

Auruo nearly faints.

Is sure about to when Levi does as Hanji requests of him. He’s to try out the equipment (he has another set of instructions for himself), before bringing it back, but before then he has a fuck ton of leather straps to put on before he’s able to equip this goddamn contraption that better not land him in an infirmary.

\--

It’d been Eren’s intention to bring these apple pastries quickly to where Levi is while they’re still hot. He’s quick on his feet, but after Petra cheering him on, food is best warm, Eren finds that he’s not as familiar with the way as he thought. There’s so many paths in the city, all looking alike to the other, all so systematic- humans are. That Eren is now lost.

He runs into a bunch of children who'd been playing out in the streets, they trail after him having been drawn to the smell of the pastry. He brought more than a few and saves one for Levi while giving the rest to the children, asking them if they know where Auruo’s metal shop might be. A couple scrunch their noses, others too busy eating and not paying attention, some just don’t know it, someone knows. Since big brother is so nice and gave them something nice to eat they’ll show him the way.

It turns out this grateful with payment child doesn’t know it all too well either, a few others think they do and they argue a bit about that, while another child looks over to Eren and says he looks familiar. With this brought to their minds all the children work on figuring out where had they seen Eren before-

“The Autumn Festival!”

“With the Heroes of the Militia!”

“You’re wearing that mantle, are you a soldier too?”

And a hundred other questions a mile a minute that Eren isn’t entirely able or sure he should answer, until the loudest one, while said from a timid small child with a matching voice- reminds him a little of Armin with their blonde hair-

“You were singing at the festival right? I’d never heard a voice like that before.”

Eren bends down to their level, all the other children looking in interest.

“Is that so? May I hear your voices then to determine the difference?”

Some are shy at first, some break out immediately into song with no hesitance, before another insists- a girl with braids, an older looking girl- she’s saying they should sing all at once and decide a song.

They decide an old song about a cat on a house, on a fence, and his fetching whiskers, his tragic fall.

Eren laughing at them, how earnest they are, how cute they are. A boy with messy red hair is not so taken to Eren’s laughter and scolds him to not be mean, others defend Eren- his laugh wasn’t cruel, it was the sort mothers do when you told her your tale of daily endeavors (the edited one of course) and she finds a part particularly amusing.

They resume their search again, none with a clue if they’re near or not. Eren is about to try to return to Petra’s, perhaps Levi has returned already. When he hears what the children are talking about now. Fairytales. The old song had riled up thoughts on them. Some of them are rather heatedly arguing, they’re arguing on whether or not-

“Mermaids don’t exist! My father is a fish monger, he’d know if they did.”

“Tales are just tales!”

“Well my papa is a fisherman and his grandfather was one too and he saw a mermaid once! He said so!”

“…I heard my mom talking to my dad about these rumours-”

“They exist! Even just because you’ve never seen one-”

Eren interrupts.

“That’s right! Just because you’ve never seen one before doesn’t mean they don’t exist!”

They all turn, alarmed that an ‘adult’ has joined their conversation. But Eren still is young, and looks as such, he has some authority to them, but in the way siblings disagree, so the unbelievers do, the skeptical- turn their voices to him.

“No they don’t!”

Eren insists.

“They do! One of you asked why my voice was so different earlier. I shall tell you. It is because I’m a mermaid.”

They all collectively look down to his legs.

“Nuh uh! You don’t have any fins!”

“You’re a boy!”

“Why aren’t you in the ocean then?”

Eren explains he used to have fins, a tail- but no longer does. He’d been very sick so a friend made him have legs. Like the witch from the fairytale? A boy asks. Eren supposes Hanji is kinda like… a witch… he tells them that is so. He also tells them stories of the sea, what creatures there be where he is from (the less scary ones, and remembering how grossed out Levi’s expression had been to some, avoids speaking on those), the sort of games his friends and he used to play, the fish they ate, the songs sung, all sorts of stories that had them all enraptured. Even if they didn’t believe him to be truly once a mermaid all he said was so interesting, so different from tales they’ve already heard. Another child, a girl asks why did big brother become human? Did he too meet a prince?

Eren quiets here, thinking about it.

Levi definitely-

“No way! You must be lying big brother, anyone can make stories! Mermaids definitely don't exist!”

-is no prince.

“Hey. You brats. Will this suffice?”

Eren sharply looks up at the figure that’s come in from behind him, turns to look on hearing that familiar voice. Despite the bulky equipment that’s tied about him, he carries himself as if it not even be there, descending the steps with familiarity.

Levi holds up for them to see- drawn from beneath his mantle, from a pocket of his suit- something shining, blue and green, green and blue, harder than steel, heavy. It’s almost shameful, the amount of time it takes for Eren to recognize what it is. When he does it feels like all the blood in his body has burned so hot it’s cold.

While Levi does not look his age, he still looks much much older than Eren, considering he is; in that to these children a real adult has now told them, and shown them evidence that-

“Mermaids exist!”

“This is a mermaid’s scale?”

“How pretty!”

“No doubt!”

They chatter excitedly amongst themselves, some apologizing to Eren, others thanking this scary uncle for showing them a real mermaid’s scale. Scampering off, unable to tolerate uncle’s intense scowl.

They yell back at Eren to not be afraid, he should just swim away.

“Do they really believe? In the end…”

Eren is saying to Levi who glances down where Eren is still crouching. Hugging his knees to himself. How much of this conversation of his with the children had Levi heard?

“Some do, some won’t. Who fucking cares. Let’s go back to the inn, Eren.”

Eren rises, taking the hand Levi offers him. The one that had had his scale, before Levi had put it back away into his pocket.

“Uhm!” Eren starts, voice urgent, dulling down to a hush as Levi stops. All ears for what Eren has to say, almost concerned.

Eren looks as if he’s debating something, finally he makes up his mind by pulling Levi down a narrower street, a dead end ally way, where he hopes others won’t disrupt. There are so many people, so many humans in the city, in this world. It’s overwhelming. Yet out of all of them it was Levi that Eren had first encountered.

He’s fidgeting, wringing about his hands even after dragging Levi into here. Eventually unable to keep still, unable to keep his hands off of Levi as he thinks upon it more, that feeling in his breast on seeing Levi present his scale to those children, that Levi has been carrying one of his scales this whole time- on his person- surely-

Eren throws his arms over Levi’s shoulders and presses him against the stone wall, pressing with his whole body against Levi’s as he draws his face closer. Eren bends his knees, tucking his legs about Levi’s as he levels their faces and asks, discovering that feeling in his breast had not only been startling like the sparks of kindling flame but sweet as well, drifting incense.

Eren continues, almost feverish, almost desperate-

“Levi! My scales! Have you kept them all this time?”

Levi places his hands over Eren’s hips. Delayed to answer. True he has had them but they’d not been on his person. Not as Eren has had his mantle. He almost regrets this. He should not lie to Eren.

But Eren is holding him now, needy to hear one thing.

Levi draws his hands up the length of Eren’s body, over his ribs, his back, his shoulder blades. Inhaling Eren’s scent as Eren presses closer. Levi kisses the side of his neck, Eren shuddering, arching into him, making all sorts of breathy sighs that’s compelling Levi to say anything other than no. How can he tell Eren otherwise than what he wishes to hear? When Eren has lead him here himself, every bit the temptress from the legends that mermaids be.

Levi will accept whatever retribution that lies for him for this lie, and for coveting Eren from the sea.

It is a half truth, he’d not carried the scales but-

“That’s right Eren. I’ve had you all this time with me. Every day I could not be with you I thought of you. Every night I could not touch you I touched myself.”

Eren is still with every word, every muscle tense. What be truth and what be a lie- he is taken by both and does not mind them either, whatever words come from Levi’s mouth so long as it is Levi then-

“Me too, while you were away I was cold. This mantle you left me warm, but not nearly warm enough. Shall I tell you the count, of how many times I’ve wrapped myself in it pretending it to be your arms?”

How many times has Levi carried him already? At the cove, beyond the cove- not just in his dreams but in actuality?

Eren is kissing him, again, almost sloppily, so Levi directs his mouth. Hand in Eren’s hair again, locks slide from beneath his fingers as Eren slides down, kissing down Levi’s chest, his stomach, through his shirt, over these odd leather straps, as Eren sinks to his knees, unbuckling Levi’s trousers. First feeling Levi’s erection from beneath the cloth. Eren bites his lip to quiet his eager moan as he draws Levi’s dick out and takes it into his mouth, sucking hard when he feels both of Levi’s hands in his hair. Gripping roughly. Levi recalls every time in the cove and elsewhere he’d imagined this of Eren and his soft mouth.

Soft, warm, Eren’s palm too as he grips the base, trying to not take too much in at once, failing when Levi jerks his hips forward, a little too fast, the equipment makes a dull chiming thud against the stone wall with every thrust. (If he fucks up Hanji’s equipment it’s her fucking fault for giving him the responsibility). Eren’s hand at Levi’s hip, the side of his thigh and then into Levi’s hand as he moves one from Eren’s hair. Their fingers intertwine, palms pressed together when Levi comes into Eren’s mouth. He grips a bit too hard at the back of Eren's hair. Eren swallows his cum down. Still swallowing even when Levi pulls Eren back and draws him up to his feet and repositions them so it is Eren against the wall now. His arms thrown back again over Levi’s shoulders. Careful that Eren’s scales are in his pocket, and not in the handkerchief they’d been in, as he unbuckles Eren’s trousers and with the handkerchief at hand, fists Eren’s erection and brings him to climax. Making sure all Eren’s semen is in the handkerchief and he’s wiped clean of it before folding it away, pocketing it elsewhere.

Eren’s face flushed, when Levi kisses him- this time his mouth is not at all sweet as apples. With Eren trembling in his arms as he struggles to stay on his two feet, Levi supports him.

Evening is here.

Levi looks upon Eren's downcast eyelashes, his bruised mouth.

“Let’s return to the inn.”

\--

It’d been their intention to return to the inn before the sun had set.

Ink blue black night stains every corner and every space of the streets.

Levi had figured going through the back ways he knew would be quicker to getting to the inn than the no doubt weary worker filled, home returning, last minute meal cooking, errand running public streets. But it came with a price. What thieves, thugs, criminals that also enjoyed the back way streets for their seclusion and possible prey.

He’s been gone long that this scum that appears before them, barring their way, doesn’t recognize him at all. Not even when Eren says his name, looking to him for what they should do does even a hint of recognition come to being.

The recognition he speaks of is not of his days in the militia but the days before that.

If they’re truly from the underground then these bastards would have some idea of who he is, but considering their stupidity is tripled through ignorance, it’s making it annoying to determine who might have sent them.

The remnants of the church? The scorned Dauper Village? A collector looking to make a fortune? An eccentric nobleman? One of Hanji’s old colleagues? Or even someone from the inner court of the Queen-

It does not matter, they can think on that later based on what happens now. Right now they must escape from this situation.

The only open way in this street leads to a dead end. That’s where they’re being pushed to by these thugs that have demanded Levi (‘short stuff’ they’d said) to hand over the mermaid to them. Be it they overheard the children in the streets, they had heard Eren sing, pieced together the rumors of Hanji’s island and that night- or had obtained information elsewhere- for whatever reason they are seeking to steal Eren from Levi.

What Levi has stolen from you, you are sure to never get back, should one seek to steal from he- it is simply not possible.

Levi has Eren run with him to that dead end.

There an ambush is waiting, but facing it head on-

Will not be a problem.

Even as they grab onto Eren, telling him to not resist, a knife at his throat. They restrain Levi as well, tying up his arms and hands, thinking as they have Eren already they may let their guard down, they are careless. Steadily that the answer Levi had wondered over, reveals itself from this man’s mouth. The leader of this band of thugs who just can’t seem to control his glee at having caught what his employer had asked, for such a big sum too. Enemies that become allies and allies that become enemies, it matters not if it is wartime. Either is fully possible. Based on history, relationship, and situation. The one who seeks to steal Eren now is not only a collector, in league with Hanji’s old colleagues, but also one from the royal court.

General Dot Pixis.

There is no mistake.

It is a simple investment, he should like to have Eren, no doubt because he’d heard mermaids to be beautiful, but also the other reason for how they came to be. Levi doesn’t know how much Pixis might know about the superhuman experiments that’d been done in the past, but the old church surely knows about them. While they’d handed the old church over to the police for trial, it’d been the royal guard that’d been at the Queen’s side when she remained within the kingdom. No doubt they’d not stayed out of the loop- no doubt they’ve figured something out-

They push Eren’s hood back, and the probably leader grabs Eren’s chin.

“Not what I’d expected and a boy, but a pretty boy so perhaps we’ll be forgiven. Don’t worry fishy you’ll be back to your regular form in no time.”

Levi waits for confirmation, absolute and resolute now that it is arriving.

He’s going to either break or cut off every single hand he sees upon Eren now once he has it. Eren who has done well so far to quell his fury. He cannot hold it back when a thumb is drawn over across his bottom lip, that bastard continuing-

“No. Pixis won’t have any problem with this.”

What point is it to be lead by one so dense as this son of a bitch? Levi wonders if Pixis chose this group based on fact or representation. While he may like Eren he may also be curious of the actions of Levi, Erwin, Hanji and the others… at his doing this. With him either could be of value. Levi will have to consult Erwin about this when they return.

The thugs have started to catch on, some sweat, some start to hyperventilate as it feels every pressure is being placed on this one spot. Themselves.

It is not just Levi’s killing intent they feel.

It is Eren’s as well.

And his killing intent is inhuman.

“Do not touch me with your dirty hands.”

Is what Eren is saying to the leader, voice low. This is no bark, the bite is coming.

The leader laughing, turning to Levi.

“Hey you have him trained well. By the way don’t you look familiar… ain’t you Levi? Got tired of playing soldier didja? How about this for a home welcoming?”

Levi isn’t even paying attention to the leader, his gaze intense on Eren’s as their eyes meet. Levi has to hold back his exalted breath at Eren’s golden eyes, far brighter in the night. They light up even brighter when he finally says what Eren has been waiting to hear. Any sort of permission.

“Eren. Do not allow further insult.”

It takes only a few seconds for Eren to free himself. Part of the muscle training Hanji had had Eren do was not just simple running and weight lifting exercises, he also picked up some hand to hand combat skills from Levi. They’d polished them when Levi had decided they were to go to the capitol. Atop of that, while the merpeople did not have war, sparring and hunting also required a certain skill like this. Being a superhuman, the strength and skill Eren has been able to cultivate- is nothing the enemy is a match for.

Levi has to admit. Eren is somewhat talented in hand to hand combat. He’s not so good with his legs, which is understandable since he’s not had them all this while. However, Levi can certainly make up for it. With Eren no longer restrained he detains the leader, who after seeing his men pulverized left to right fears for himself. Yelling orders heard or not, those who run never return before them, and those who stand their ground either are fools or too gripped by fear.

It is Levi’s legs they should have restrained. What unfortunate bastards that'd been by him are now on the ground.

Eren releases his hold on leader.

The leader remembers this, realises this grave error not at the first kick, but the sound of it as it comes hurtling at him, a blow to the head. Then rapid, a barrage to his gut, over and over, before his feet kicked from him, then atop his skull, a shoulder, as Levi jumps, whirling up in the air to strike down a kick to the shoulder, the force he’d put in it and his weight gives him enough supporting force to break the rope they’d crappily tied anyway. On landing he smashes down a stomp with one foot into the spine, the other a heeled kick down to break the hand that’d touched Eren. Levi grinds his foot down.

Levi kicks back with the other heel, into the back of this bastard’s skull not sure if the crack he hears is satisfying enough-but considering he isn’t moving anymore it should do.

Driven by do or die, or their own investment, those who remain seek to assault them.

Before Eren need to sully himself further, Levi decides he will not allow it.

“We’re leaving, Eren.”

He gathers Eren into his arms, and lets out that held breath. Eren’s eyes green blue at this moment. A little more effort than usual Levi notices he has to use to lift Eren. He’s not tired, that’s not the issue.

He uses this equipment Hanji is having him carry, leaping once more against the wall. The thugs think they cannot escape further. Perhaps if Levi had not been carrying Eren it might be possible to them for him to scale a wall. But to them now it should not be possible.

He scales it anyway, the wire whirling nearly missing one of their opposition. Darting this way and that on either side of this dead end with the help of the wire to pull them up; until he is up on the roof. Seriously a bunch of fucking amateurs. They thought the walls too high they need not put a guard here.

Levi runs atop of the roof.

Despite they cannot be pursued up here and are not.

Jumping from one roof to another. Ascending higher with the equipment. He’s glad he tried out the basics at Auruo’s. It has come in handy, even though this isn’t the “flying” he’d been thinking when that shitty pair of glasses had been talking about it. Not that he’d bothered to listen entirely so he’s at some fault for his own surprise.

Levi addresses what he’d noticed earlier to Eren.

“You’ve gotten heavier, are you pregnant?”

He’s expecting Eren to be affronted, or tell him what a shitty joke that was but instead Eren goes completely still in his arms. Wringing his hands before coming to gnaw at one of them. Levi orders him to stop. Almost loses his footing at what Eren says next when he does manage to speak.

“Might that be it? Petra did say that when humans create a baby, into a hole men put-”

Levi stops him again. Immediately.

“No. That’s not it. You don’t have that. It’s not that hole Eren.”

Eren looks confused.

“I didn’t think that could be so either. We’re both male. In my world too you have to have a set of opposites to create offspring. I can’t lay eggs so…”

Levi forgets there are still many things Eren doesn’t know about humans. Sometimes keeping track of it is a hassle.

“That sounds fucking gross.”

The sound Eren makes is almost offended.

“Do you not like children Levi? I thought you handled them well earlier.”

“Being able to handle them and liking them or not are not the same thing. Truthfully, it depends on the child and their behavior.”

Eren mulls over this.

“I will do my best to make sure our child behaves to your liking then.”

Levi slows to a walk after he almost trips again.

"You're not really pregnant are you?"

Eren is laughing at him now.

Levi is deciding what sort of punishment is to be merited for this. Levi jumps down from the roof back onto the streets. They’re nearer to the inn now.

“Answer me. Eren. If you’re not then this can be arranged.”

Eren starts, drawing out from his arms, stepping onto the ground- “What are you saying. Did you not just say it is not possible?”

Shrugging, Levi looks to Eren as he takes his hand in his and they head down the street towards the inn, damn- they are going to have to apologise to Dita for coming back so fucking late.

“You mermaids are weird. Maybe you don’t work fully as a human male should. Maybe those shitty glasses fucked up. There’s only one way to find out.”

When Eren doesn’t reply.

Levi wonders, has he taken the joke too far? It wasn’t all that funny he has to say. Why the fuck does he always run his mouth like this- with Eren you have to be straightforward, and with his ignorance still of many aspects of humans then-

“Uhm! Levi! I would not be opposed to it!”

“Should you wish for a child and I am able I would not mind.”

Hold on.

“It is an honoured thing to create life. Since there are so few of us it is indeed a privilege. Let us do our best!”

This ain’t-

Eren is looking at him now, nervous, enthused, his hand warm and trembling in Levi's.

What was he thinking- saying? What does Levi need to say? To think right now? This ain’t the sea and-

Levi catches it. Eren's mouth twitches as he holds back a laugh like before. His hand flinches, he can't bite it right now.

This brat.

So Levi replies,

“Yes. Once we get back to the inn let’s try Eren.”

"Eh?! Really? I was merely-"

"What? Chickening out now? What happened to your bravado of before?"

Levi's enjoying it more than is to be kind, how increasingly flustered Eren has become.

"I will do it!"

Before Levi can marvel at the short span of time it took for Eren to go from playful to serious and indignant- Eren suddenly remembers the pastry he’d been saving for Levi and hands it over. Even as Levi eats it (“Ah, you made this with Petra didn’t you? Not bad.”) he asks Eren if this is the culprit to his weight gain. Really it is probably muscle but when Eren’s face turns red like it does, it’s Eren that Levi wants to eat.

When he asks how many children Eren is willing to give him. Eren tells Levi if he insists on teasing him like this he isn’t going to get any.

Eren takes his education of the human world rather seriously sometimes.

Maybe not entirely tonight.


	8. Chapter 8

Grey white, is their breath.

A touch darker than the pristine white of the snow that’s recently fallen. They survey the woods. Out in the vast field near it. Wondering if they should bother to enter. It’s been quiet for a while, and Mike hasn’t caught the scent of anything- deer, birds, rabbits- or the like to hunt. And it is not just from their distance away.

It is unusual.

While they thought it wouldn’t be bad to hunt today, their primary reason for being out here is to try out Hanji’s equipment. “3-dimensional maneuver gear” is what it’s called. It utilizes every muscle in your body to distribute weight to the right places to uphold yourself in air so you can leap, and practically fly anywhere.

So long as you had something for the wire to hold onto on takeoff and landing, otherwise you’re pretty boned.

Hanji had decided to stay the winter. Erwin had granted her an entire wing for her experiments (and for their safety). Moblit, a particularly trusted understudy of hers is with her today. He’d been studying at a university usually frequented by nobles but had gotten a scholarship. While the school wasn’t the worst he could do better, studying wasn’t his only purpose- he was also spying for them. It’d been from he they’d learnt that General Pixis did know about the superhuman projects the church had tried to hide. If Pixis had more than just a passing interest is their concern. They still are finding more about that.

They don’t think it’s by the Queen’s doing that Pixis is involved.

Weeks earlier, before the first snow- Queen Historia had sent Erwin to investigate and try to make peace with the Dauper Village. If it’d been anyone but Erwin they would have protested and suspected they’d been given up to the lions. While Erwin’s hands were not bloodied directly, they had been willing. It’d been by his order many of Dauper Village had been killed.

With caution he’d taken Mike with him, along with other arms from their militia days- Nanaba and Gerger who still worked with him while he was in the capitol from time to time.

When they’d gotten to Dauper Village it was deserted.

Like people hadn’t been there for months.

Some of the livestock was still alive, but sickly.

The houses unoccupied, most of the doors unlocked.

Beds made, beds messy.

Tables with half eaten meals, and tables empty.

They’d walked through the whole of it, and could not determine what could have happened. It did not look like any place was forced into, or any struggle had been made to suggest the whole village taken by slavers or captured by other rebels. If the entire village had left on its own, the oddest thing was why they’d not taken their livestock? Or any other means for survival? Weapons, tools, food, so many clothes- all left behind.

It was as if everyone had decided all at once to get up from whatever they’d been doing at the time and leave.

Following the faded marks of footsteps that went on and on until they were unrecognizable, by time, crossing animals, and the tangle of the forest they disappeared into.

The only person they’d found- dead in her bed, an older woman who couldn’t walk when she’d been alive.

They’d burned her body as burial custom went and after looking through the village one more time. Returned with their report to Queen Historia, who would in turn personally report the findings to those of Dauper Village who’d moved into the city or farther from the mountains, those who’d tried to assimilate from the old ways, but still had family back where they were from… had had family…

“There were no signs of bloodshed.”

Is what Erwin is telling Levi.

It’s damn cold. They’re wearing winter attire. Dark mantles, the insides fur lined. With the extreme cold Eren had finally been convinced to wear a different mantle. He hates the cold. He was also less inclined to peel his clothes off, as he often did in his earlier days of accustoming to the human world. Since he’d found them too restricting and heavy. Now he is perfectly fine with them, the brat.

“Do you think Pixis is involved in any way?”

Erwin is frowning, thinking over Levi’s suspicion.

“He might be but I don’t think he’s the sole participant. It’s someone else pulling the strings. Pixis is merely catching onto one on occasion and pulling it now and then, to see what happens.”

Levi pulls up his gloves, they’re not as snug as he’d like, clothes are often like that for him.

“Well? Is whatever the fuck is lurking in the woods part of that occasion or something else?”

A brief sigh, Erwin is apologetic for all of three seconds before his expression hardens again. Levi doesn’t give a shit about sympathy towards himself. Whatever miniscule amount of it Erwin possessed Levi has always coaxed him into saving it for their soldiers. So many that had followed them and fallen.

“Something else. I’m hoping we can discover exactly who-  _what_  it is we’re up against today.”

“By we you do mean me don’t you?”

“You’ve caught me there. Has there ever been anyone else?”

Levi looks over the 3D maneuver gear he and everyone else but Eren is equipped in. Then to Hanji who’s a ways off. She’s timing the speed between Mike using the 3D maneuver gear and Eren’s natural speed. After presenting her (kinda) invention to the Queen she had gotten the funding to make more, and pay Auruo that sum she’d promised. She’d offered Eren to equip in the gear, he’d be faster than everyone then! But he’d declined, he didn’t want to carry anymore than he had to. Perhaps not a brat but a princess.

“I was under the impression that this situation was your exception. I ain’t going alone am I?”

Erwin nods, caught again.

“I don’t know if the target is us or Eren. I want for the two of you to enter the woods and either kill or drag whatever is in there out to us. If the both of you go-”

“I understand. We will go, Erwin.”

Erwin almost looks surprised.

“To be honest I didn’t expect you to agree so readily.”

Levi’s intake of breath is almost violent, his words calm and harsh post the exhale.

“Even though you’re often full of shit too I trust your judgment. If there were any other way-  _if there were a way better than this_  we’d be taking it. But right now, this is all we can do and so we must do it. Besides, it’s not often we get the  _honour_  of striking first. It’s truly a fucking privilege. I’d hate to be the one to deny us that.”

Erwin is reloading the shot gun he has at hand.

“Thank you Levi. I appreciate it.”

Though he doesn’t intend to say more on the matter, still Levi tells him-

“Save your pretty words for later.”

Levi sharply turns, a hand at his hip as he tells Hanji that by Erwin’s orders they’re stopping here for today. They’ve got something else to do. Hanji gives an excited whoop and holler, she’d been hoping for this. Their prey is something she’s highly interested in. They’ll be bringing it back to her won’t they?

Levi’s leg twitches as he resists kicking her, instead dampening her mood with words. He won’t make any guarantees, hunters who are bait, their own safety- their lives- are in high priority despite the danger.

So long as Eren returns that’d be enough for her, she tells him.

Hanji supposes the pain she feels from the bruise Levi’s kick had merited is the same amount of pain he’d felt on her comment. She yells out that she misses him already when he draws back to where Erwin is, Mike now joining him.

Levi’s look a touch more sour than usual, before Hanji sends Eren over. Eren always takes a long time when drinking anything. Water in particular, a wonder it isn’t frozen in the pouch with how cold it is.

“Did you get that Eren?”

Levi is asking him.

They’re going hunting in the woods, deep into the woods if need be. Their prey is large today.

Eren gives an affirmed nod, eager.

Though hunting in the human world is so different, the trips- they always make in groups remind him of the hunts he often went with his family and friends. The sense of community, the pride to be taken in your kills (to be eaten later) and the skills to obtain them are all familiar. It reminds him of home.

Hunts here are often more strategic than spontaneous and trees much more different to navigate than coral and rock, but there is rock on land too. What he doesn’t know, what he’s not familiar with- he’ll just have to learn won’t he?

Though Erwin loaded a shot gun it’s a pistol he holds up to initiate their entering the woods.

Whatever remains in the forest, they want it to know they’re coming.

“Well then Levi, Eren sortie!”

Eren is already twenty feet ahead of Levi, despite it’d been Levi who’d set off a second sooner before the shot.

\--

Snow is falling softly as Eren hops down from the low branches he’d leapt onto, heavy snow falls from them as he lands before what caused him enough interest to stop.

It’s an old building.

Eren approaches it carefully. Its feeling of familiarity strikes him, how can it be familiar if he’s never been here before?

Levi stops as well, landing by Eren a few feet back, observing him.

“What is this?” Eren asks, turning back to look at Levi, almost dazed.

He approaches further and places a hand over one of the wooden pillars.

“A shrine.”

Is what Levi answers, stepping in besides him.

“Shrine?”

“It’s a place where gods rest. Many people of the fallen religion believed gods resided in the mountains.”

So they’d built these shrines for gods to rest in. Looking from a different perspective it could be interpreted differently. Not a place for resting but a place to imprison-

Levi walks around the shrine. It’s rather run down from age and no care.

“It’s fucking huge…”

“Is that unusual?”

“Probably.”

It was odd because this part of the mountains didn’t have any people living around them until recently. These were the forbidden, cursed parts. Why was that so? Why did people have to stay away from these mountains? A shrine of this size… meant that whatever god was expected was large. A god... or a monster?

Whoever had built this shrine had made sure it could accommodate whatever deity that happened upon it, and that it would hold for centuries. It could be a sign of respect. But such a big sign where no people could see was wasteful.

Eren opens up the doors that lead into the shrine.

There are no gods.

What the people had been led to fear were the superhuman experiments their ancestors had either created or been subjected to turn into. Shrines where offerings were made and prayed upon are merely the face of deception. If you give vision to a lie it becomes truth doesn’t it?

“Don’t go in there Eren. You’ll get dirty.”

Eren sneezes, not from the cold but the dust.

“Levi, no one has been here quite a while. Is it because you and Petra and the others have killed all the gods?”

That is what is said of the militia.

"No, that's not it."

This entire time they’ve been in the woods they’ve not encountered many animals. Some startled birds, a few cowering rabbits. It is not from their presence that this is occurring, something else, that something that they must find-

Levi looks to Eren.

He is as human as he can be. In order to become a superhuman Hanji had said you needed a human already above average in order to withstand the process. Hundreds of years ago their common ancestor did experiments on their own kind to create something more powerful than any blade that existed upon this earth. They had succeeded. But at what cost? At what sacrifice?

As thought.

This shrine is not for worship.

It is a cage.

How did it come to be as it is now- how did these superhumans that’d been created for humans by humans, escape to the world they know? Whoever it was who pursued this “evolution”- may have had good intent. To end the war as quickly as possible. If there is a victor than there is peace, for a time. Did that peace vanish because the weapons that’d been so labored upon had escaped? Or had their existence caused only more strife? Had it been by this good intent that dwelled in others that they’d escaped? Far into the woods, to the high cliffs- that deep sea where Eren is from and dreams about.

Just as the good existed, so did the bad, people who wanted to take advantage not for humanity’s sake but their own. To conquer everything, to survive. At whatever cost. To create something inhuman they had to become inhuman themselves.

Grey breath again.

“Hey. Shall we do a bit of cleaning before a meal?”

Eren had just been about to close the shrine doors.

“Eh?! Is that really so wise, are we not on a hunt?”

Eren wants to preserve their energy for attacking the prey; hunger was taught a good incentive to tracking. Not only by eating did they destroy this incentive, to exert themselves on something like cleaning…

“I thought you enjoyed learning about the human world. Or are you not keen on learning any history?”

There are no gods, so there is no need to keep the shrine. That is a thing of the past.

But looking at Eren standing before the entrance Levi cannot help but feel if Eren were to step into it, that would not be odd at all.

If that is the case then it should be cleaned up.

After begrudgingly assisting in cleaning the shrine (and finding some interesting things up in the pillars, amongst loose floorboards, an old diary Levi flips through shaking out for any bugs before tucking it away for Hanji and Eren pocketing what looks like crystals, an old rusted key and some foreign emblem) having worked up a brief sweat Eren unpacks what food had been brought and they sit outside the entrance of the shrine after cleaning inside it and have bread, some cheese. Eren scolds Levi for drinking wine not water. Though Levi had brought water too.

Eren is going to angrily drink all of the water he’d been so upset Levi had not been drinking.

Levi pulls his water pouch away from Eren’s mouth as he asks-

“Why did this place catch your attention?”

It wasn’t merely because it’d seemed a building from no where was smack dab in the woods. Eren had been attracted to this place.

“That is…” Eren thoughtfully looks about, breath stilled, as he tries to comprehend why exactly drew him to here.

“Some of the stones in the walls… they don’t look or feel to the touch like coral and yet… they remind me of it. That’s really weird isn’t it?”

Levi stands and helps Eren up as well.

He picks up the red scarf he’d been wearing but had taken off to avoid getting it dirty while they’d been cleaning. He wraps it around Eren, ties it, tucking it in about Eren’s mantle and draws the hood up, the noon sun bright on the snow resting on the trees.

“What else?”

Eren’s brow is scrunched up as he concentrates harder, despite the familiarity-

Eren places a hand over the bump of the knot of the scarf that peeks over the clasp of his mantle, looking at Levi, he tells him.

“Whatever it is that we must find… it wants to get as far away from this place as possible.”

“How do you know this? Intuition?”

“That’s a rather eloquent way to put it.”

“It appears we’ve spent too long a time at Erwin’s then.”

They’ve dawdled enough.

They resume the hunt.

\--

Nearing the foot of the mountains is another building.

Far larger than the shrine, a white clinical building a few stories high and probably more below. Between here and the shrine Eren had caught sense of something. If Mike were here he’d be able to sniff it out. But if it’s as Erwin has deducted, the target is either after the two of them- it will not show itself to anyone else.

The front portion of the building is battered, like something rushed out and on the backlash wind the windows shattered. New snow has fallen in and Eren steps in hesitant. Levi behind him. Levi warns him to step carefully. This building is old, maybe as old as that shrine.

They advance forward. Through what might be a lobby (another face of something else), through some halls, all yielding empty rooms, the one where a kitchen is looks like it might have been occupied not too long ago, a half a decade or so. It isn’t as heavily dirtied as the other rooms, and some items that look more familiar to their time are present. Someone had lived here, hid here… briefly Levi remembers the rumor of where their Queen and her knight had met- it’d been in these woods, perhaps the two of them had hid here for a time?

Upstairs, more halls of similar nature. Occasionally the draft from a broken window. The halls cold from the wind coming in, the frozen drifting snow.

The layout is odd, the farther they get in the more like a maze it is. Levi reminds Eren once more to proceed with caution, but turning to look where he thought Eren not be too far ahead sees he is gone.

Levi doubles back to where he’d been, where he’d thought he’d been.

The halls are becoming darker. Eren wouldn’t have a hard time navigating in them on his own. He often expresses discomfort at how bright their world is, it’s the dark he can see the best in. Another characteristic of him that isn’t fully human. Like his speed, his strength. Then what does that say of Levi who is actually human- who surpasses him or can match him, oddities really do go well together...

This doorway.

There’s no door to this room though the hinges remain.

No doubt Eren avoided this particular room.

Levi stops and rests an ear along the wall. Listening. There doesn’t sound like anyone is in there.

Still it is with measured caution he draws closer to the doorway and enters. A blade drawn. A nice modification of Hanji’s to include sheaths for weaponry within this contraption she is now calling hers.

He takes what he deems an adequate blade in length and sharpness for fighting in such a space and keeping it aside him at the ready, grip backhanded, he looks about the room.

The lights in this room are powered by some technology Levi is not familiar with. He’s even doubtful that shitty pair of glasses could explain it. Maybe after investigation she could but this- light is white unlike any flame they know. Almost like the day sun in winter.

Trays of equipment, much like the ones Hanji kept and had had to use on Eren among other unrecognizable tools are on small wheeled carts or had been- some now overturned, spilled on the floor where others have been crushed. Littered everywhere are broken chains and bindings of a material like leather. Whatever had been in here had escaped. Recently.

The floor is dried sticky and dark.

It’d killed too.

It is not the blood of one but many.

This much Levi can tell.

He can tell from which way and how the blood is splattered or strewn in just what manner whoever had been alive in here had been killed. Some of the blood is from what dead had been dragged in here before the monster had killed. What had they been feeding it? Whoever had cared for it? Created it?

Looking over the room further he draws deeper in, blade still at the ready. But not as tense as he had been on entrance. While he is still expecting the unexpected, he doesn’t want to exert too much energy on the unlikely.

After a few minutes of contemplation.

He sheathes his blade.

He peels his not very fitting winter gloves off for a different pair. A pair he can discard when dirtied.

Around the cage are mounds of bloodied tarp, lifting it up he confirms what used to lie under the tarp had been mounds of flesh. Hacked corpses. There’s still leftovers, limbs, fingers and hair that’d either been too much a hassle to consume or hadn’t gotten within as much range as whatever had consumed whatever else would have liked.

Levi pulls these gloves off and tosses them aside but doesn’t bother putting back on the winter gloves.

A monster that eats humans.

A large monster by the size of the cage.

He cannot say for sure without further evidence but he suspects here is where the missing people of what remained of Dauper Village had ended up. In this old facility where superhumans were bred once, a beast had been created and they have been fed to it. By who? For what purpose? How had they been convinced to come here…?

From below him there is an anguished cry.

The basement.

That is where Eren has gone, the dark must have been appealing, inviting, he must have been curious.

Levi rushes out of the room not bothering with caution.

Should an enemy appear he only need be faster than it and cut it down.

He runs forward down this hall, down another, going down only what appears darker (he’s blind in this dark) until finally he makes it to the entrance of the basement, eyes adjusting, he stumbles back up the steps when his boots splash against the still water that’s nearly knee deep.

Swearing he pushes himself to enter it.

Eren is down here.

If there’s anyone else here all this splashing alerts them to either come at him or run away, the water lowers as the ground suddenly rises. This lower floor is like a dungeon, the walls all cold and moist. Moss grows in places, and water even flows down the brick stone, too systematic to be as organic as that which covers it.

Levi calls for Eren, voice stifled by the flowing water so it does not echo as soundly as it usually does in places such as these and here, Levi realises- this place is a cage too.

The entire building… the entire laboratory.

Why isn’t the water frozen over?

He runs.

He has to hurry.

If he loses his wits to emotion the both of them will die.

But still, it is a certain delirium that is in his movements now as he calls once more, twice more, another, another, another another another for Eren.

A solid crack.

He’d stepped on something metal and it’d broken beneath his hurried step.

Lifting his foot up he sees it’s a key.

He’d just seen this key, Eren had found it in the shrine… so it’s to here it-

He steps into this now open room. A room that’d been locked moments before.

Cracked glass, old and dinged, some remaining. Tubes of tanks that reach from ceiling to floor. Constricting. Enough to fit one grown person each. Some are still full of water, brown and green. Or black. Some half full with water, with plant life growing about it. Some empty.

Some occupied.

Whatever is in here is half born, deformed, and no way living any longer.

Eren is crouched before one of the tanks, clutching his head, sunk between his knees. Shaking. Anger, sadness, fear.

It enshrouds him and Levi does not dare go near him. Even after desperately trying to find him. The danger is too imminent.

For every one superhuman created, a thousand failures were discarded.

This is the sacrifice.

Eren is a descendant of a species half human, half beast- that have surpassed even the dictations of the two species they’d come from. Stronger in their limitations of physical strength, adaptations; withstanding of pain- with special abilities. They were bred to be weapons. So humans did not have to fight they were created to fight in their place.

But-

“Am I not human?”

Eren’s reaction is not entirely emotional.

It is a genetic condition bred, deeply, long before from when his ancestors had been created in this room. Humans had created these superhumans not for the sake of progressing their species, but to preserve it. This evolution was to keep the stagnant of them existing. That was why the high cost was paid. Perhaps there were some among them that thought they were advancing for a better future, but the truth was it was coward’s fare.

Eren’s kind had been created to be slaves to humankind and so in this room-

Eren tries to stand.

He cannot stand.

He doesn’t remember how to.

Falling back.

His hands on the floor.

He looks over to his sprawled legs.

Once he’d not had legs.

Why does he have them now?

It’s not possible to move them, he cannot feel them, useless,  _they’re not supposed to be there!_

Levi moves.

He draws a blade down upon Eren’s arm, the one that had manifested back into a claw, sharp, the scales bright, gone as quickly as they'd appeared- his blade- the one he deemed the least sharp- does not cut but snaps in half upon them. Levi has to twist his body to the side to avoid the broken blade from cutting anything else but his cheek.

It has done as he wished, Eren’s movements have been halted.

Eren would have ripped his own right leg off if he’d been allowed to.

In this room, where merpeople had been created- his body remembers, and whatever modifications Hanji had done are being driven in reverse as Eren reacts, unable to stop himself.

He is not human.

Was it because they’d been deemed slaves to their creators, that when the merpeople had escaped to their dark sea they had named it “the Superior Sea”? Because they are superior beings? Strong, strong, strong- strong enough to finally be free!

A species that cannot continuously create offspring that will continue to do as such in turn and thrive in the environment it is in is not strong.

The bird folk, Ymir’s kind that had eventually died out- though they’d been superhumans too- in the end had they been strong?

Sasha’s village, who some still had ties to what they called gods, in this world where the gods have all been killed- had they been strong?

Eren, who has been taken from the sea and cannot return to it- is he, strong?

Within the Superior Sea, that is his home, back there it’d been, Eren remembers, he’d met Mikasa.

They’d been children.

Barely eight years old.

His father had intended to pay her family a visit. Routine he did with all the families of the Superior Sea being a doctor.

But her family had been seized.

Back then a grand revision on how the colony was run was being undertaken.

The elders of their colony had wanted to put down Mikasa, because of the tribe she was from (her mother had been from) this tribe had been one that had evolved within the sea and had not come from the great immigration. Many of her tribe had already been executed. They’d come from a different sea (but it’d been so long ago) and so were to be treated like outsiders. She was abnormal and could not be allowed, she would be dangerous to them. She cannot procreate with them.

But she is one person.

How could her existence be so dangerous to the whole of them?

They’d tried to feed her to the sharks.

When Eren had first seen dolphins he’d been worried they were sharks.

His father is an influential person. His medicine saves many of their lives, lives that are precious because there are so few of them. That was why Eren had not understood. If all lives are precious why were they trying to throw away Mikasa’s?

Because she was different from them?

(And he loved the lore of humans, who so different from them-)

He’d been small.

If Mikasa wanted to she could have escaped through the openings in the net that’d been cast around the area that entrapped her with these sharks. Eren had fit through so she could fit out. But with her parents executed, and she refused of the colony she’d been raised in, what point in living was there?

His father would be upset, but he’d gotten the sharpest tool from Grisha’s kit and luring the sharks to him, had killed them one by one.

The last Mikasa killed, Eren trapped beneath some coral about to be eaten, she did it in one blow. Picking up a particular sharp rock, she’d killed it. Eren remembers the words he’d yelled to her right before she’d dealt the blow, for she'd been hesitant-

(“Fight! If you cannot fight, you cannot win!”)

The life Eren had sought to save had saved his own.

With Eren’s father’s influence; the fact the doctor’s son had been put in danger, and then Mikasa’s display of strength- the elders of the Superior Sea had pardoned her.

Mikasa is strong.

Even now when he has not seen her for so long, surely, even now she is still-

“Fight! Eren!”

It is not her voice that brings him to realization, into focus.

It is Levi’s who has crouched by him, and sought to have him rise. His hands about Eren’s shoulders, a broken blade laid down by his dirtied knee.

“You can stand. You’ve done it before, you can do it. I’m telling you-  _you will do it._ ”

Eren looks, mouth agape. When did it become so hard to breathe? He can breathe above air, yet his body, his body wants the water- he needs to be- under… water-

That is what he thinks.

In truth if he were to submerge beneath any water now, should he try to breathe beneath it he would die.

He might die anyway.

Levi grabs at his wrists.

Wondering how many more times he has to go through this, this retribution. Wondering if once more he will need to break Eren’s arms, but this time Eren pushes himself into Levi’s arms, shaking his head, still unable to breathe- trying desperately to stand though he still doesn’t know- doesn’t remember how to and-

Fuck it.

Levi hoists Eren up against him, to carry him.

Rushing out from the basement, ready to kick and crush- bone, steel, rock, whatever the fuck should appear before him as hindrance, he runs back through the water, the dark to the upper floor, and covering them both in his mantle, he smashes through the closest window he encounters. Falling, utilizing the 3D maneuver gear along the building. He gets them safely to the ground.

Not so safely out into this increasing snow storm.

Kicking his mantle away from them, discarding it, some of the shards of glass that’d been embedded into the wool scatter out behind him.

He reenters the woods.

\--

It’s a good thing they cleaned the shrine since that’s where they’re holed up in as this storm rages outside.

They’re both wrapped up in Eren’s mantle, lying in the shrine where only gods should have been allowed rest.

When Levi feels Eren stir next to him-

“How are you feeling?”

Eren doesn’t reply for a few seconds longer than Levi would have liked.

“Not well sir.”

Levi doesn’t scold him for that sir. Eren has pressed his brow against his and Levi can feel its clammy heat, the sweat.

Fight or flight.

The colony of the Superior Sea, the merpeople who resided in it, the first of them upon creating their new home had set up a barrier, had denied the existence of humans to protect themselves, because they were created for humans, they’ve no freedom by existing with them. They were created to fight and so they created a society where outside the hunt, such fighting to be abhorsive.

Another reason Mikasa had been pardoned, had also been from public outcry.

Levi cannot see his face clearly but Eren can see Levi’s as if it’d been day.

He touches at Levi’s face, frowning at the cut on his cheek. Levi chides him not to touch it, angry but relenting as Eren leans up to kiss it, lick at it. Healing it.

Eren can breathe now, but it’s erratic, labored and only measured when Eren concentrates on resting.

“How about your legs. Can you move them now?”

“…more or less.”

Levi rolls over atop of Eren.

“Breathing?”

Eren is pushing against him.

“Not for much longer. You’re rather heavy, did you forget that?”

Since Eren is having a difficult time breathing anyway Levi kisses him on the mouth and takes whatever breath Eren has managed away. When he pulls back Eren unties the scarf about this neck, Levi surprised, isn’t he cold? Eren tells him he’ll breathe better with it off. And there’s no way Levi isn’t cold too right now, they should take care of it, quickly please- as he undoes the buttons of Levi’s shirt and pulls his own over his head, lying back against his mantle, a soft satisfied sigh on feeling flesh against flesh as they embrace each other-

More clothes are discarded, piled against the what Levi could manage at the time put away 3D maneuver gear. Their clothes were warm but they’ll regret for many minutes this decision in the morning, pulling those cold clothes back over themselves- lying them against something metal doesn’t seem all that wise but it isn’t like the floorboards are much a difference either. Gods are supposed to be immune to the cold aren’t they?

They’re not gods.

To be honest if asked if they’re human-

After all that Levi has done, all that he has witnessed, and all that he has learnt on account of Eren’s existence- Levi can say with certainty-

He is human.

Humans are such monsters.

Levi kisses Eren deeply, holding onto Eren's wrists, releasing them as Eren's fingers comb through his hair. Levi rubs their cocks together, grip becoming tighter when Eren brings a leg up over his hip and digs a heel into his back. They rut against each other, enjoying the heat of their bodies, the movement, the friction, all those gasps of air Eren needed- he’s panting now- both of them moaning, unable to tell who comes first. Levi makes a face at the mess in his hand (not bothering about what mess is on their stomachs, he’ll deal with that later). He reaches his arm far to wipe his hand against the bare floorboards they’d cleaned earlier in the day. Briefly he wonders if there’s some sort of atonement for this desecration, forgets about it entirely when Eren pulls his face forward to have a better look at him. Irritated Levi’s gaze had been away from his for so long.

Despite complaining Levi to be heavy, Eren happily lets him rest stop of him now. Either too tired to complain himself, or warm enough to bear the added weight. Eren cradles Levi against him, softly he begins to sing a song that he apologises he can’t sing all the parts to but he’s been needing to sing the song of rituals for some time now hasn’t he? Not at all a lullaby. It’s old sounding, like another tongue. It’s to this Levi falls asleep.

Eren stays awake a bit longer, knowing his tears won’t wake Levi as they fall aside his face, onto the floorboards.

\--

They have to push hard on the shrine doors to make a big enough opening to get out.

Much snow has fallen, despite it- this morning is as clear as the morning before when they’d first headed out.

The storm has passed.

They start to return home.

Eren asks if Levi would like to take his mantle, he has the scarf too- but Levi refuses. He’d told him before hadn’t he? He’s survived much worse with less. It won’t be long on leaving the woods. While embarrassing and frustrating to return without their objective, it wasn’t like they’d found nothing. Hanji would no doubt be disappointed (disappointment he hopes he can avoid hearing bitching about with what they’d found in the shrine), and Erwin concerned, but it couldn’t be helped that whatever the fuck had been here is nowhere to be found now.

What Eren had managed to track had been the shadow.

They’d found where the monster (whatever it was) had come from, that would be good enough for now. They will just have to figure out what to do from there.

Levi is about to call Eren back to him, not liking how far ahead he’s gotten again, remembering the incident in the laboratory. While he doubts a repeat of that is inevitable in the woods- one of the wires of the 3D maneuver gear grips onto not bark or rock but what feels to be  _flesh_.

Levi whirls back, latching that wire onto the nearest tree, tossed into the air he sees it upon turning. Looking down.

The black mass that he’d struck, stirring.

This whole time they’d been unable to find it because it’d gone… dormant?!

Even after going through all the trouble of breaking free and eating the forest clean-

The cage that it had been kept in is nearly six times smaller than how big it is now, an ever changing, shifting form of many limbs and mouths, humans and beasts alike are mixed in. It is no wonder they’d not spotted any prey in the woods. It’d all been devoured by this.

What had become of the Dauper Village.

He’d thought it would just be some creature, some horrible beast experimented on to become stronger that laid in store for them but this- before him  _is_  the Dauper Village. They had allowed themselves to be experimented on, these proud people who “had been gods”, and into this they had become.

One monster.

Ever consuming, devouring everything, unable to stop.

A failure.

Not all humans who’d been experimented on had had death as their fate, those that were weak, inadaptable- this was what also could be in store for them.

Their target-

Is him.

Levi feels it.

Their hatred, their fear, their rage, their great desire of revenge when it- though it has no head, seems to turn from the end it could see, sense the most from, it turns itself towards him, reaching- killing intent greater than any army, any enemy he has ever faced-

Even before this.

Levi does not hesitate.

Drawing forth his sharpest blades he readies them, kicking back against the air and relying on his own weight as the wire cables strike forward to allow him to fly forth. Tearing through the monster’s distorted enraged cry Levi hacks into its body, blades cutting, around all sides as he whirls around it, using whatever need be- land- tree- rock- to strike from left and right. Slashing into it with no mercy. No remorse.

An attack from a beast is dangerous in its own right.

An attack from a beast seeking vengeance-

There is only one beast, one monster in this world that can seek such a thing.

Levi cannot take it alive, it is not possible on his own.

It is too powerful.

He will kill it.

He hacks his way through the supporting legs, drawing a blade under what can be the suspected belly, flying up into the air as he strikes along where ribs should be (what the fuck is this thing anyway-) along the back once more, but always in a different manner, from a different angle. To not miss a thing and in case the intelligence this monster still possesses be intact- to not allow it to use it to Levi’s disadvantage.

He’d done a good job cutting it up.

He’d better have considering he’s spilled a ton more blood on himself that he’d been hoping to avoid.

Truly he’d done enough that an entire army would have fallen by now… if not for the monster’s ability to regenerate then…

From many of the wounds steam rises, where all those legs, limbs, ears, claws, feet, hands had been cut off, rise others, new ones. This is a monster that had taken in not only human life but the lives of many beasts in these woods. The number of lives he’d need to take from it for it to die would have to equal the amount of lives it’d devoured.

Within it all lives are equal.

Levi’s feet hit heavily into the bark of the tree he lands against as he discards the blades that have dulled and takes up fresh ones.

“Fine. You massive hunk of shit. I’m gunna do it. Prepare yourself!  _Just like your traitors for relatives._  I’m going to kill every last one of you. I’ll cut you up into so many pieces you’ve not a single leg left to stand on!”

A human consciousness remains, the feelings of those who had lost, the feelings of those who had walked all the way to the laboratory for this purpose, who had cried, who had screamed- why did they have to abandon the gods for a queen that allowed such monsters in her company?

It roars.

The battle cry of the undefeated.

Before Levi is a monster.

And to it Levi is the same.

Just as Levi is about to plunge into another round of attack, the monster, that had been raging from side to side, clawing at him, biting at him, roaring at him a hundred people groaning, screeching, whispering  _kill kill kill kill kill kill kill_  has gone completely silent as it reaches once more, “looking”- not in Levi’s direction but opposite of it.

Levi had hoped Eren had gotten far ahead enough of him to consider the race won, but that’d never been the point of Eren’s racing with Levi had it?

Eren halts, alarmed, landing on a high tree branch as he looks down and it “looks” up at him- this-

A tremendous roar.

Every creature on this earth would quiver in fear at the sound of it.

Both human and inhuman.

Upon spotting Eren it drives forth relentless, the speed it’d used against Levi nearly quadrupled. Even if he loses his voice, Levi yells to the top of his lungs, no time to swear even internally-

“EREN THIS IS AN ORDER!  _RUN!_ ”

Eren falls back from the branch, looking back in disbelief, as he too puts to pieces what it is he’s looking at.

Experiments that end in failure- people that had been unable to become like him were- are-

He narrowly misses getting hit as it crashes next to him, the forestry doing nothing to slow its pace down. It is relentless in its pursuit of Eren. Eren whose ancestors had been successful in their transformation, Eren who is their descendant, Eren who no doubt if they devoured- would make them unstoppable- undefeatable- if they could only devour him then they could kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL! KILL! KILL! _KILL!!_ **_KILL-!!!_**

Eren swerves left, narrowly avoiding it again as it hits a mass of rock. Eren taking this time to dart high up into the trees and hurrying from there, heart pounding faster with every crack and snap of the trees behind him. He can hear it heaving, crying, the only word it knows as murderous as its being, a scratchy growl, the rumbling of its roar echoing throughout its black unending mass.

He stumbles, and on his fall every limb it has reaches out for him, a tremendous wail coming from it as it does so, the sort of sound he and his friends made fun of anyone for getting afraid of, lightly, teasingly to ebb their own fear- it’d just been a stream passing by a hole in the cave- through the coral-

It cannot reach him.

It will not.

Levi will not allow it.

Levi hinders it.

Cutting through its body again.

If his blades had cut through any vital organs it’d not been enough.

Eren is nearing the edge of the woods now. To make up for his earlier blunder he concentrates, concentrates particularly hard on gathering all his strength in his legs, bunching it back against a log he’s jumped against so violently it starts to crack beneath him- strength like that time he’d had to burst to the surface- when he’d still had his tail- it’d be easy now- a piece of cake Petra might say- he’s not carrying Corporal Levi, a life other than his- the air is much more forgiving on this level than the water-

The water never forgives.

This is not the sea!

What had Mikasa said when she needed encouragement in races, against the flow- against the water that held them, sustained them- their world- he hears her murmur it, always looking so calm and in control on the surface but inside a bundle of nerves like them all, really she should really-

Fast. Be fast.

Faster than anyone!

He bursts forth.

Out from the woods into the plains of thick snow, cutting through it, a torrent of snow and ice flying back aside him like a wave.

The monster gives an enraged scream and also increases its speed, crushing beneath it all that laid before it. At that speed it will surely catch up with Eren.

But just as it leaves the woods-

Faster than Eren even.

Are these movements Levi puts all the speed he is capable of with the 3D maneuver gear in use, holding nothing back as he once more hacks into this monster, the last of his blades in hand as he spirals around it back and forth, using the momentum from his increasing speed and the flesh of the monster itself to make up for the fact there are no trees for him to imbed the wire in and the snow piled ground too unreliable.

Dark, heaping crimson seeps from it faster than the steam that indicates its regeneration. If only Levi could keep this up for another ten minutes or so. His promise to cut the monster into a pulp without a leg to stand on would be entirely possible, even worse than that.

But the 3D maneuver gear still has limitations and the gas tank is near empty.

At the very least this delay has been enough time to let Eren get away for sure.

Levi flies directly up into the air, high.

He pulls all his weight down into this last spinning strike. Cutting. Then imbedding a blade deep into the beast, he takes with him his final blade as he ricochets off what he’d hoped an adequate distance from it- he’d brought the blade just in case the snow fall would not be enough to soften his landing- indeed it isn’t.

What he lands upon is hard ground, the force of the landing more violent than planned even with the blade to anchor him- it takes him a moment longer to rise to evaluate the current situation he’d been lost to in the few seconds of his landing. He sends off a signal with a flare gun to alert the others of his location.

The earth is hard here because the snow that’d been here has been cleared away, taken away- used for covering-

Levi looks up, around, the cold fury he’d felt saturated through him shatters into regret.

It pins him back though he moves against it.

Despite his efforts, what he’d hoped had been readable judgment-

Eren had not gotten away.

Eren had ran as far as he could but his speed had not been consistent and upon slowing down, panting, stumbling about in the snow that now handicaps him- despite that Levi had bought him time- the greatly wounded, still bleeding, steaming, seeping, roaring monster- this black mass- if it is a god the Dauper Village had wanted to become then they certainly look to be it- a god of death- it has caught up with him.

(He? Eren?)

Levi has cheated this god so many times.

Levi hobbles on his legs as he tries to run forward- this stupid fucking piece of shit invention- this stupid fucking shit body that is having trouble moving- he’d been so fucking stupid- Eren the fucking goddamn idiot what the fuck is he doing- why did he- why did he stop running when Levi had ordered him-

Unable to run any longer, Eren has suddenly whirled around, as if to fight the monster head on.

Levi sees it, his red scarf as it flies out about Eren, untucked from all the motion, from Eren’s mantle as Eren opens his arms out and looking to the monster he cries out, looking upon it as if it had a singular face to peer upon- his voice confused, young-  _merciful_ -

 

“ _STOP!_  WHY?! Why do you want to kill us? Are you not  _human as well?!_ ”

Just as it’d stopped before upon seeing Eren in the woods it stops before him now.

As if it has died.

A giant breath escapes it.

The steam has slowed just as the bleeding increased.

It curves its mass as if it can look at Eren.

Perhaps it can though they see it to have no eyes, only trailing hand, feet, claw, arm, leg-

Teeth, blunt, sharp, crooked, straight, rotten, foul and sweet.

A thousand open mouths, the voices of the vengeful as it gives its answer.

“Kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL  **KILL ME!** ”

And then a thousand eyes open upon its body and it really does look straight at Eren.

Not a plea but a demand-

Wanting desperately to be pitied.

And Eren has-

Deceived them.

By his intention or not.

A thunderous roar right before they hear high above them, far from them, mounted up in a wooden tower an archer might use when on guard of a camp. She’d had it built while Eren and Levi had been hunting in the forest. Her voice is on the edge of euphoria.

Hanji crying out to Eren, herself, all that can hear-

“AH! YOU REALLY ARE THE BEST! Mermaid princess!”

There’s a sharp click from the controller in her hand as it triggers the thousands of wires that’d been hidden in the snow into motion, revealing itself from the landscape that Hanji and the others had been transforming in the time they’d been away, taking advantage of the cover of the new snow- the wires strikes from left and right, into the flesh of the beast. Then multiple nettings of thick cable collapse over it from all directions, holding it down as it screams screams _screams-_

Eren struggles to run once more.

Levi falling upon his knees, unable to see from where he is through the mass of counterattack and the cast off snow- if Eren has not been caught in the crossfire.

Eren hasn’t.

Erwin had ridden in on horseback and picked him up. Eren's legs had finally failed him completely, exhaustion causing collapse. He wouldn’t have been hurt where he’d fallen but it still wasn’t safe to be this close at this time.

Erwin rides round with Eren, who is trembling from exhaustion against him and not the cold for once, to where Levi is. Where they'd seen the flare.

Erwin's voice carries well over any distance.

“Sorry it took me so long to respond to your signal. Levi.”

Eren jumps off from the horse, stumbling, half running, a surprise he can still run at all, but since it’s to Levi- he runs to where Levi is still collapsed, he on one knee. Supported the amount he is by the blade he’d struck into the earth. He grips at the handle. Eren’s concerned face flooding his vision, his voice washing over him.

“Mr Levi! Are you alright?!”

That that is the first thing Eren says to him after possibly being dead  _again_ , Levi is ready to chew him out- he was going to hear some new human vocabulary right-

Not now.

Eren did follow his order best he could to run- even if it'd been a half assed job in Levi's opinion, considering only moments before he'd been in torment over if he'd been alive or dead. Perhaps it’s enough punishment, from how hard Eren flinches on Levi disregarding him to look over his shoulder to Erwin who has also dismounted.

Erwin has not heard Levi speak to him in such a manner since their training days.

“Erwin. Care to enlighten me why the fuck you thought it a good idea to so carelessly use  _something that isn’t yours._ ”

There is no change in Erwin’s expression, only a tone below the lightness it’d been.

“It’s simple Levi. It’s as you said to me before, there was no other way. I merely thought as your superior you wouldn’t mind if I borrowed one of your possessions from time to time.”

This is not the barracks, they no longer have their youth, though whatever squabbles they’d had then had not been petty adolescent bullshit either.

Eren glances back from Levi to Erwin, noting that both nothing and everything has seemed to change in the air around them.

Levi’s glare- the slight of it could kill more than one man but that is nothing unusual and Erwin’s entire visage indicates not a shred of repentance.

As the two of them look at each other-

Erwin continues.

“This is the first time you’ve so openly disagreed with a decision of mine.”

Levi has risen to his feet. Sheathing his only remaining blade.

“You already know the reason for that Erwin. You’re not an idiot.”

It is a waste of time for Erwin to feign stupidity with Levi, it is a waste for him to feign just about anything around Levi. They already know each other.

Erwin knew from the start.

If he created a plan that meant Eren facing the target alone Levi would not agree to it.

“And this is the first time you’ve so openly displayed anything other than faith in me. Next time you wanna pull this sorta shit, care to fill me in beforehand so I don’t nearly bust my goddamn leg.”

Levi gestures with a tilt of his head to where he’d fallen.

It’s a deep dent in the ground.

Erwin laughs.

“I will be sure to.”

“And you.”

Levi turns to Eren who nearly jumps after being ignored all this time.

“Didn’t I ask you before if you could move your legs? What the hell was that?”

Eren bristles up, defensive.

“The prey was faster than I anticipated, sir!”

Levi is scowling.

He does scold Eren about this sir, Eren looks away. It’d been on purpose.

They rejoin Hanji who’s come down from her tower, she’s practically dancing as Moblit worriedly looks over the restraints, Mike walking around with him as back-up in case the monster does get loose… Hanji doesn’t think that’ll be so for a long time, she’d laced the ends of the wire with sedatives after all. The monster should be sleeping beauty long enough for them to study it at their leisure, and once it woke! Well hopefully they could get a lot of study on it then too before they dispose of it.

“Dispose of it?!”

They all turn to look at Eren who's spoken rather loudly, even for him.

His face has paled and he’s looking directly at Hanji who turns to him a little confused.

“What? What else are we going to do with it? It’s too dangerous to keep. I highly doubt it’ll warm up to us like you did Eren.”

“About that! Can’t you just… do what you did to me… to them?”

Hanji quiets, thoughtful before shaking her head almost sadly, full of empathy and pity.

These feelings are for Eren whom she must tell-

“It’s not possible. If they’d all been one entity to begin with it might have worked. There’s just too many of them to separate now. But if they’d been one entity to begin with that’d have meant they’d been successful in their evolution you know? So there wouldn’t be any need of this.”

Eren doesn’t seem to understand still.

“Why… won’t it work?”

Hanji pulls down the hand she’d been resting at her chin. Trying to think of an answer that is both correct and understandable to Eren.

“Because they’re too weak.”

Even if Hanji went through the process to change them back, none would survive the process.

In cases of this it’s much easier to move forward than back.

Like age.

Eren looks over to where the monster is completely still, drugged into sleep. Immobile even in slumber from the wires that tie it down.

Hanji gives a stretch of her arms. Drawing them back to her sides, folding them behind her as she ebbs closer to Eren, studying his mounting anxiety, his concern.

“Really you were amazing back there. If Levi won’t praise you, I will! It really seemed like you thought this monster is human! Your voice really expressed that. You’re really skilled at acting Eren! Do merpeople like performing arts?”

Eren is distant on replying, his thoughts are far away, his gaze still over to where the monster is held.

“That is correct. We like them a lot.”

Hanji gives an intrigued hmmmm.

“Are you considered skilled at acting in the Superior Sea?”

“I’m alright.”

“You’re always so humble. I wish you would tell me straight! On these sort of topics when they’re directly about yourself. How about you answer this then?”

Hanji had been yapping away, happily, almost playfully but what she asks next, her voice deepens and it’s a scientist who wants to know, starving for the truth, for discovery-

“Despite your acting skills back then when you asked why the monster wanted to kill you even though it is human too. So you see it as human? Why do you see it as human? Is it because it’s the same as yourself? Is it because if it isn’t human then you aren’t either?”

Levi had not drawn his blade on Erwin but to Hanji-

“Oh! Scary! Levi that’s super scary!”

He has.

“Hey. Could you back the fuck off for a moment. I’m getting real sick and tired of keeping you in line. It ain't my place. Isn’t that thing over there enough for you now? It’s more than you deserve.”

Hanji moves to straighten out her glasses but it’s goggles she’s wearing at the moment and they don’t need such adjustment.

“Taking out anger on me isn’t really nice at all," she replies to him. Used to it. Deciding against glancing at Erwin who looks to them both, but does not intervene.

Levi has some choice profanity for her before he discards the 3D maneuver gear with little care. With the gas tanks empty it’s useless. That blade still in hand he turns to Eren.

Who has turned to face Hanji.

Eyes more blue than green he replies.

“It is as you said Ms Hanji. To me, that monster over there is as much human as I am. If I were a little weaker I too would have been like that. We all would have… so, may I ask you favour?”

Hanji’s voice is hushed, gentle but inquisitive.

“Sure.”

Levi readies his blade.

Eren’s expression is that which Levi has only seen once before. At the cove, right before Eren had realised he was being taken away from the sea.

Eren asks.

“Could you kill it as quickly as possible?”


	9. Chapter 9

Krista is reading over the book Sasha had brought to her carefully, near the end of her lunch.

It must be something serious, important, for Sasha had not accepted her offer of remaining orange bread, half a link of sausage and some cheese. Her armor looking a little less tended than it usually is. It seemed this morning she’d placed it on in a hurry. Her ponytail so messy Krista had been reminded of the scientist Hanji.

Krista sits at her desk in her office that’s adjacent to her sleeping quarters. Night fallen. She’s already dressed in her nightgown, ready for bed, but she’d promised she’d give the book a thorough read and speak to Sasha about it as soon as possible. Sasha had been adamant she take the book, with many apologies she’d not shared it before. It contains information that might be crucial to the current situation. She’d found it when they’d been hiding away in that lab. Because it’d contained such sensitive information about her ancestors… her village… she’d not want to give it up, and with all that’d been happening at the time she’d found it- along with the nature of the contents- she’d never thought it’d be relevant.

It’s a record of sorts.

Each entry dates several hundred years ago. A lot of the terminology, grammar, and spelling is outdated. Krista is only able to read it because of her skill with languages, having honed them during her time in the convent. It was one of the only things you could do. She also often organised the library along with many other sisters. There was a forbidden part of the library only those at the highest of ranking in the clergy could enter. She always wondered what pitiful state it was in, being it was only men who were keeping that section in order (she kept this kind of joke to herself of course.)

Careful with the old pages, she’s so immersed in the book she hasn’t even noticed that Ymir has returned from the bath and is snacking rather messily on a pomegranate by the hearth. Her damp hair dripping but drying. True to what she’d been and what she still partially is, Ymir likes this fruit for the fact that not only is it tasty- the whole point of it is to eat the seeds. She loves fruit and grain. Also meat but only if she could tear it to tiny, far smaller than bitable shreds. That of which Sasha would lament about; what a waste of the meat it was to change the texture so drastically. Ymir usually did not eat poultry (“Kinda wrong,”) and she’d never had fish before descending upon the world below.

“So… Krista, don’t you think it’s time to turn in?”

When Ymir doesn’t receive an answer she glances over to her Queen. Krista concentrated as her eyes actively and swiftly scan over the words of the book in hand, prompted on her desk. Ymir remembers after she’d explained what she was, where she was from, Krista had been surprised she knew how to read. Albeit what she knew how to read wasn’t much like the language that presently exists. The writing system had either changed too much, or they’d developed their own. She’s grateful the speech had not changed as much, though there were many differences and sometimes they’d argue over a certain meaning of a word or the existence of certain words. Ymir also has a knack at languages as Krista does, while her speech was different she could still pick up on how Sasha speaks as being far too formal. Both her and Krista are still trying to wrangle Sasha into speaking in her home dialect.

They’d heard a little of it when Historia had gone to speak with the remainder of the Dauper Village, following Erwin’s report.

Ymir can tell Krista is upset so many people had died… but she too had been relieved that winter, that those who did remain had been understanding of the situation, appalled and sad without a doubt… but they did not blame Historia. The rebellion had died with the victims.

Krista’s blonde hair glints in places where the light of the fireplace catches it, as the fire burns, crackles. Ymir figures she’s gotten too warm and she wants to sleep already.

She gets up, taking the husk of now empty pomegranate- she tosses it into the fire. Flames noisier, and she’s wondering if it can either burn the rest of the fruit or if the room is about to smell really weird, but she supposes if that does happen maybe that’ll get Krista’s attention and they can finally go to sleep. Krista wakes early every morning and usually goes to bed late as well. As per the requirement of her royal workload and the amount of ceremony that goes even into daily tasks.

What a pain.

Ymir is standing in front of Krista now, a hand on her desk, other at her hip- about to ask if they can sleep since it’s already way later than usual when Krista finally looks up from her book, already midsentence on calling to the bedroom if Ymir could please come over here.

She jumps when she sees not only is Ymir already in the room but right before her.

“True to your nickname,” Krista is trying to joke though Ymir can tell by the dip in her brow she’s startled and trying to determine how long exactly Ymir has been in the room.

Ymir sighs.

Scratches at her back.

“I hate that fucking nickname. Couldn’t it have been something way cooler? Anyway, are we going to bed or not?”

Krista’s look is thoughtful, “Soon… but first hear this. This is the book Sasha gave me that she’d picked up from the lab… the entries date way back.”

Krista pulls forward the short ponytail she’d tied her hair in, over her shoulder. Ymir glances at the motion, then to Krista’s eyes, her mouth as she speaks-

“Subject S is showing incredible progress. Unlike the other Subjects, it is capable of Complete Transformation. Not only can it take the forms of the Wolf, the Elk and the Bear, it is able to do so with little difficulty. Since the other Subjects did not start from 0, it seems they are not or not yet capable of the abilities S possesses. Method 0-ten is surely superior.”

Krista flips back and forward through the pages she’s read, some marked with scraps of paper. Trying to decide or remember where it is, the certain ones she wants to read are-

“…S is incredibly strong. It seems more comfortable in its other forms than the human one we originally started it from. With it present, other Subjects, such as X and Y show signs of early advancement, though they can only do Partial Transformations at the moment…”

Krista flips her ponytail back.

“…some of us are concerned over Dr Yeager. He has given S a name, ‘Sina’. Problems will arise from this. He places too much focus on S.”

Krista flips through some more pages.

“An agreement was reached. S should not be replicated. Instead focus shall be put on Partial Transformative Advancement.”

Biting at her bottom lip then-

“S cannot be replicated. She is the product of error.”

Krista glances over to Ymir and reads a few more passages.

“Sina must not be replicated. Dr Yeager admits he has made an error. ‘How strong is the guise of humanity,’ he said. He exterminated Sina tonight. 1800 hours. I can sleep.”

The next few pages are blank and Krista is about to put the book away until she reaches near the end, interest piqued since she did not notice this entry. The book is only more than a little halfway filled. The way it starts suggests there are more records before it.

“What is it? Krista?” Ymir asks as Krista pauses from reading the last entry, scrawled in script familiar to the other entries, but hastily down and without order, without date- as it slants off near the bottom of the page.

Krista reads aloud.

“We cannot sleep.”

Ymir is still for a moment as they ponder the meaning of that statement.

The fate of these scientists who’d first worked on the Super Human Project. Had they all met the same fate as Dauper Village?

Ymir reaches over and shuts the book. Hands at both her hips as she says in an attempt to lighten the atmosphere-

“Yeah we really can’t, because you’re still reading this creepy ass book. Surely that’s enough for tonight?”

Krista is frowning, she wants to share something else but seems to be having second thoughts. She pushes forward anyway. There is only one person she can confide everything in. That person is Ymir.

“…look at this.”

Krista pushes forward a form that’d been at the top of the other papers on her desk, not entirely orderly, but a chaos that Krista is in control of. She must have placed it at the top with the purpose to show Ymir.

“Does anything strike you as familiar?”

Ymir reads the form over, trying to do so as quickly as possible despite the letters being uncomfortable to her. It’s a standard marriage application. Everyone who is getting married within the kingdom submits one. Usually it’s submitted to the head of what town you reside in. If you resided in the capitol or a town without a head then the form must be submitted to the Queen. Before the church had fallen marriage applications were sent to priests.

When Krista sees Ymir’s eyes widen in surprise she speaks.

“I do not know if it’s a coincidence or not. But what concerns me is if it  _isn’t_  coincidence.”

Sasha had given Krista this book because of their recent findings on the Super Human Project the fallen church had been hiding. Krista doesn’t think it’d been wrong of the church to have hid all this, they’d not had part in the project and that was not the reason for their active cover up, but the information this project yielded on the history of mankind and the technology that could exist… not all of it was good. And much of it undermined the teachings and beliefs of the church. While the church had hid it with their agenda in mind, condemning it with their own ideals, Krista hopes to hide it too with her own view of what is right and what is wrong. For the better of her people.

At all costs she must hide it.

Prevent it.

The devastation it would cause is too high a price to pay for what advancements to humankind it’d bring.

“That bastard who looks like he’s always exhausted… Erwin’s right hand, Levi yeah?” Ymir taps the paper, “So that’s his surname?” Ymir asks Krista.

Krista shakes her head.

“Levi does not possess a surname.”

Like Ymir.

Krista had wanted… Historia had wanted to bestow her surname upon Ymir but Ymir had declined. It might have made many more things difficult for Historia’s rule and they know where they stand. Together. They do not need to rule together. Ymir had laughed about it. Making her royalty would totally be a mistake… besides… that sort of attention on her would lead to an active search on her origins. There already was one on her position of being Historia’s Knight but if they’d become Queen and Queen the intensity of such a search would call for their answer. An answer they cannot give.

“Who is this person whose name is Yeager then?”

The same name in the record.

It is an unusual name, old.

“It’s the surname of Levi’s intended.”

Was it coincidence? Why is it this name had been chosen? Did Levi and his betrothed have some link to the Super Human Experiments that Krista and she were trying to keep hidden? And if so what was it that they wanted to do? If they knew this name had such a connection would they had as boldly as they did, let them know as they had? Was this a message? A warning? What is their true objective?

With the recent tragedy of Dauper Village… with the rumors of a mermaid having been discovered on Hanji Zoe’s island… and now this… were they even closer to what they hoped no one else find, what might be deemed- the truth?

Ymir sets the form down.

They can’t be trying to hide it. Only an idiot would do that and then submit this name. It’s either they’ve not a clue… or they hold all the clues.

“I don’t like to include old men in my affairs but don’t you want to… consult Pixis on this?”

Krista is indeed surprised by this suggestion. They’d asked him a few things, but without giving up a proper amount of information, it’d been a meager exchange.

All they know is he’d been curious about this mermaid too.

If anything else.

“Let’s not.”

Krista rises from her seat.

“Least not tonight. It’s far too late, shall we head to bed?”

Ymir pumps a fist in the air.

\--

The wedding is soon.

Erwin and Mike are working on the flowers, cutting and arranging them, cleaning them. Mike has at least four bandannas wrapped over his mouth and nose to prevent sneezing and other unpleasantness. Erwin’s gloves are dirtier than Mike’s. Hanji helps a little with keeping the flowers in the arrangement. It’d be bad if they lost their form before the wedding. Some flowers are kept with their roots in the dirt while others are manipulated and cut, and placed where it is seen fit. Erwin mentions in passing it’s a shame they can’t ask Pixis for his help. Along with many other duties involving protecting the Queen, the capitol, his family has tended to the royal rose garden for generations. When the old king had been overthrown, his help had been vital.

Hanji is helping only a little because she keeps getting distracted. Going over the more detailed and scientific reasons and information over certain flowers that did they know about? But more importantly she’s been reading excerpts from the diary Levi had given her that Eren had found in the shrine. Unlike with the flowers she reads to them the less scientific terminology clogged entries. It’s almost merciful.

She leans against the sturdy table where lunch had been. The afternoon is rather bright, but with the developing enclosure of the flowers, some planned before as they twist and curl about in whatever fashion they deemed to grow in upon the domed fencing placed above, it’s hard to tell. There’s still plenty light to see of course.

It’s funny isn’t it? For them when you’re in the dark you only think of how you need light to see, but after your eyes adjust and you return to the light- the light is blinding isn’t it?

Hanji thinks against sitting atop the table, she might knock off the leftover ham and egg sandwiches and Erwin will scold her for wasting food. She prompts a hand upon the surface, the other with the book open, she flips pages she’s already read over and over and taken what could only be a novel of notes already.

“Rose asked me a peculiar thing today. She is made from 0, so this is probably why she asked such a thing. She asked us, why we don’t have wings. When I explained to her that is because humans do not have wings she started laughing. She is truly charming. I hope if I ever have a daughter her hair will be as black and beautiful as hers. I suppose Rose is like my daughter anyway so I shouldn't entertain such a thought.”

Hanji glances back to see where the plates are and changes her mind, she almost carefully sits up on the table. Her legs hang over the edge, almost touching the ground.

“The reason for laughing she gave me, when I asked why she was laughing was that humans are able to create so many things. Why couldn’t they make themselves wings? The others were surprised but I thought it best to tell Rose the truth. She is an intelligent being. Sometimes her intelligence goes beyond our own. I explained to her what happened during my father’s time. The failure of Subject S aka ‘Sina’. Rose didn’t show any strong reaction. She didn’t seem to develop any complexes over the incident. She even went on to say that was all the more reason for us to advance. She asked us if we wanted wings? And if we didn’t want to fly free in the skies?”

The entry went on to express how the writer would like it if one day Rose could truly fly freely in the skies. She and others of her species were allowed to fly, but there was a limit. The facility has a barrier that enclosed them. If Rose knew about it the writer didn’t know.

“Perhaps that was Rose’s way of trying to tell these scientists she wanted to fly in a limitless sky.”

Erwin is saying to Hanji. He’s always politely listening, even when what is being said is of high interest to him. Sometimes it catches her off guard. Not that she pays much attention to if other people are paying attention but Erwin’s responses always seem sharp and educated from how sudden they are. Polite listening does not mean active listening, yet he’d managed both. Within each of his answers is carefully evaluated information, what of it is the truth? What of it do lies make the ends of what is? While evidence is nice it’s not always the most important factor. It’s the effects.

Pixis too thought rather like this, or rather his priorities lay in this.

That was why despite what has been occurring, it wasn’t like the two were at odds with each other. Rather it could even be called friendly competition. Like a game of chess.

Hanji reads on, wanting more of Erwin’s insight.

“Rose is still inquiring why we cannot make wings for ourselves if we created her and she has wings. We cannot have wings because we must start from 0. She told me that she’d only been created because humans had not limited themselves to the cage of reasoning of what is possible and what is not possible. Evolution is not kind. The price may be high. But one shouldn’t give up. That is what she said. I am truly proud of her. She really might be my daughter. She has a scientist’s reasoning. She is right. If we stay in the mindset of we cannot do something, then we really can’t can we? I will talk to the others about it tomorrow. They probably won’t like the idea much. They will say Rose should not have an input. I do not think it’s unnatural for her to have developed arrogance; she is indeed a being superior to us. While many are proud of the creation of Rose others often find her personality brash and haughty.”

Hanji mutters something about how cute that is and how Eren could get like that when certain topics are brought up. She’d been telling him about what hot springs are and how there are some in the mountains south of them. He’d not believed such a thing could exist on the surface. Hanji supposes such an attitude was because in truth he really wanted to go see it for himself but couldn’t bring himself to ask Levi if it is alright.

Hanji reads a few more entries as Erwin and Mike work. They give her any feedback they have in the moment. Most is from Erwin that Hanji carefully tucks away in her brain to write out and ponder over later, along with sharing her own thoughts of the matter to them.

There is something she really needs Erwin’s feedback on.

Deciding it’s time and she’s gathered enough information pre-this development she finally makes her way to where Erwin is. When she offers him the book he peels off his gloves, asking her what is it she wants him to look at.

“The signature at the bottom of every entry where the dates are. Doesn’t that name ring familiar to you?”

The first initial of the first name and then-

“Yeager.”

The same name Levi had written at the end of the only letter he’d sent Erwin before arriving to the mainland.

The name that had been written upon the marriage applications. Petra had been over before they were submitted, to help look them over. Despite that the rest of them, an unmarried lot had all looked them over too guessing this be the only time they really would see such a thing. They’d all laughed about that, Levi almost scowling at them since they said the funniest thing was how he was no longer included. Petra had scolded them.

She is visiting today too. She should already be having tea with Levi if their concept of what time it is isn’t completely haywire.

Eren’s last name…

There is always the chance of coincidence. What matters to them is if it is not as such.

Hanji makes a comment on how Eren might really be some sort of princess. It’s a weak joke and without the joked at person present it’s like the punch line is missing.

Erwin asks Hanji if it’s alright he hangs onto the diary for a little while and has a look over it himself. Most likely since Levi had given it up to Hanji he’d not noticed this possible tie between the diary and Eren. Otherwise he might not have given it up. You’d think people with terrible handwriting could read the handwriting of other fellows with terrible penmanship.

He’s given the OK after some consideration. Hanji really wants to know what he thinks of it all when he’s done. She always needs an answer asap, Levi had been living with her for the past couple of years- you’d also think for a guy that required answers on the double he’d be swifter about giving the same treatment to others- no, that thought was too laughable. But Hanji seriously thought she was going to have some sort of breakdown if Levi hadn’t told her! Where! He’d gotten!! Eren’s scales!! She supposes that was part of his tactics. By not telling her information she’d in turn sought the answer he could not obtain himself even though he partially knew the truth. It was so sneaky. They are friends, he could still be tons more open about stuff- in her opinion! Even though that thought too is laughable.

Hanji leaves Erwin the diary and Mike sighs at this delay in work. If the sigh is for he’s glad for the break or the halt in productivity no one knows.

Thinking it wouldn’t hurt, Hanji decides to go make some iced tea to refill the empty pitcher on the table. She has good intentions and then she remembers, come to think of it... when she drinks iced tea it’s always premade by a certain someone who might be having some with Petra right this moment. She supposes it’d be less of a disaster (she has some selfawareness) to just go steal some of their tea.

“Oh my,” is her exclamation of surprise in this particular instance when she reaches the mansion and has made her way out to the back courtyard where chairs and a table is set up for tea. Petra has shortbread out, glazed with apple preserves, the fact there are any left-

“Even for you Eren won’t come out of his room?”

Petra looks up in surprise, a mix for both that Hanji has suddenly appeared (that of which she’s used to a louder, more boisterous entry) and for what Hanji has said. What do you mean? A clear inquiry on her face.

They’d exterminated that monster from the woods, composed of the anguished traitors to the crown, the Dauper Village. Hanji had done all the study she and Moblit could manage before it became too dangerous. She’d not needed a blade. She wonders now if it’d been kinder to have killed by one than the concoction she’d created just for the purpose of ending its life. In the end she’d been thinking for herself, and her interests. She’d even wondered what might have happened if she’d refused Eren’s request, if she’d not killed it, if she’d asked him to do it with his own hands. He has the ability.

He would have been strong enough.

The reason he’d not killed the monster that day had been because he’d thought there would be a way to save it.

Like Rose in this other Yeager’s diary.

Eren had been impressed by what humans can do and so carried high expectations.

Hanji wonders what Eren might be like if it’d not been the sea he’d been born to but the sky.

After the disposal of the body. Remains they’re still slowing burning, bit by bit. Eren had suddenly become quieter, keeping to himself often, deep in thought. Preferring to sleep long naps and rarely coming out of his and Levi’s room. Of the times they’d asked and actually received a reply from Levi, Levi had said to leave Eren be. If that brat wanted to sulk in the tub for hours on end they should let him. It was easier to maintain him. But they can all see Levi is concerned too. Just for how long would this go on?

Hanji plops the pitcher onto the table along with herself into the closest seat. Plan devastated as she sees it’s hot tea that’s being served this warm spring day.

Levi isn’t here for her to ask him how to make iced tea though he’d probably scoff at her and go make some for her if she was persistent enough (by just standing around and not going away, oh and talking lots of talking like wouldn’t he like to know how beautiful the _rosa gigantea_ were going to be at his wedding?) but since he’s not here for her to do that she’s about to call it quits. Water is so much easier.

To ease the pain of her failure she helps herself to some of the shortbread.

She won’t tell Erwin about it and he won’t know if she brushes the crumbs off her face (this time), but with Petra she probably brought some for the Commander anyway.

“Why won’t Eren come out from his room?” Petra asks somewhat worriedly. Her primary concern is clear. For this to happen so near to the wedding…

Hanji can’t help herself.

“Ah well… how do you put it, perhaps he’s just gotten… cold feet?”

Before Petra can get a word in Hanji can’t control herself any longer and starts laughing, so hard she nearly ends up on the ground, the chair toppled over her.

“Sorry sorry sorry Petra! I couldn’t help it I just had to say it! It’s truly unfortunate Levi isn’t here. Ah wait it is a good thing- he’d have pulverized me for that one.”

Attempts are made in regaining breath.

“Seriously, a mermaid having cold  _feet_  it’s really funny… don’t you think?”

Petra smiles that smile people make when they want to be polite but Hanji doesn’t mind. Hanji usually never minds. She picks up the empty pitcher almost forgetting it and stuffs more shortbread into her mouth, she heads out to the kitchen. Waving buttery, crumb dusted fingers at Petra as she leaves.

A few moments later Levi returns.

He’d left to go retrieve Eren but he’s returned alone.

Hanji had been joking but Petra thinks this is truly a serious matter.

“Corporal Levi.”

Levi sits down back at the table, almost scowling at the other empty chair. Petra knows it wasn’t because Hanji had plopped herself into it only moments before but because that was where Eren was supposed to be sitting… probably that’s it.

“What is it? Petra.”

“Oh… I was just wondering how Eren is doing… he didn’t want to come down…?”

Levi places a hand over the top of his empty cup. He’d forgotten he’d drank the rest of it in one go before he’d left.

“He isn’t feeling well he said. He sends his regards to you.”

“I see…”

Petra refills her own cup. It’s hot, the tea- she’d made a fresh pot after Corporal Levi had returned to the mansion and gone upstairs. She’d have offered Hanji some but then Hanji had said all those things…

“Corporal Levi.”

Levi looks over to her, not with the expression of ‘again?’ but full attention for what she has to say. Petra said not bad things more than often. Petra wonders if his opinion will change with what she has to say next, she finally decides to tell him.

“…Ms Hanji was here earlier… she mentioned something about how funny it is for Eren to get… cold feet. Since he’s a mermaid… don’t you think she’s taking the joke a little far? Maybe Eren-”

“She isn’t wrong.”

Petra feels a chill run up her spine despite the warm spring air.

The day goes from bright to scarlet as evening descends upon them. Levi pours himself a cup of tea as well. Instead of taking it black as he usually does she watches as he spoons some sugar into in, along with some milk. If Eren were here then this is how he’d drink it.

“What do you mean?” she asks.

Levi takes the cup in hand before telling her,

“Eren isn’t human. He is indeed as Hanji said- a mermaid. I stole him from the sea.”

He takes a sip.

Makes a face a shade disgruntled. If he was going to put milk in his tea he would have done without the sugar.

Petra gapes. Corporal Levi’s temperament to those who do not know him would seem as if it’d not changed at all but the moment that last statement had left his lips Petra knew. It is a confession.

If the gods had not been killed, and the church still ruled, Petra does not think Levi would have been religious but even so she accepts this confession.

“…and what do you mean by stole sir?”

Corporal Levi tells her.

It is a recent story after all. It shouldn’t be too long. It won’t take up too much of her time. It is the story of how he and Eren met. Petra had heard snatches of it before. Erd and Guther had heard most of it from Hanji that day they’d arrived to the mainland for Erwin’s audience with the Queen. But she and Auruo… had not been told as plainly, simply from oversight or because they never asked outright themselves, so to Petra now this truth is large.

A big fish she surely cannot eat by herself.

Should she cut it up then and share with the others?

Or save it for later?

That is what Corporal Levi has done, slowly, bit by bit, what he decides to tell her from what she knew already and before, from what she overheard, from what has been going on in the capitol itself she knows already.

Eren had saved Levi from drowning in a shipwreck.

He’d obtained injuries that threatened his life in doing so, however.

In order to save his life Levi had asked of Hanji to do all that she could and that was-

To make him human.

They’d made him as close to a human as could be possible for him, but in the end and even now…

“Eren longs for the sea. My marrying him is just an entrapment to keep him here on the surface. What he really wishes for and where he really wants to be is not here.”

Petra is clutching the handle of her teacup hard.

“That’s…”

“Even so I cannot bring myself to return him to the sea.”

If Eren is returned to the sea he may revert to his true form, he may return to being a mermaid. He would swim away back to the Superior Sea where his friends and family remain. Levi would never get to see him again.

Just as it was possible to make him human it is also possible for him to become a monster once again.

“No matter how much he wishes it.”

Petra drinks some of her tea. Burning her tongue a little, she should have put a bit of milk in.

“Is that really so Corporal Levi?”

When Levi meets Petra’s eyes they are not filled with the disgust and sentencing he’d been expecting, hoping.

“Do you really think all those things? Do you really think that Eren is staying by your side right now because you will not let him return to the sea? Do you really think that someone who smiles that brightly when he is only with you is not by your side out of anything but his own accord?”

On his palms.

Levi does not glance down in surprise but continues to look forth upon Petra whose voice has grown stronger as she recalls every moment she’d seen the two of them together- the moments they’d been apart-

“It may have been an occurrence that Eren had no control over that made you two meet, but what came after- surely some of his will and desires went into that. Are you saying all this time Eren has been nothing more than your prisoner? What does he think of that? Have you even asked him what he thinks?”

A crimson has crept into the light overheard, a sky the colour of bloodshed- of torn wings, it is behind Levi and Petra alike as they have this discussion.

“What use is asking a child on such matters?”

At this Petra slams her tea cup down. In Eren’s stead.

“You’re wrong! Perhaps when you met him he was a child but Eren is not a child any longer. He told me himself Corporal Levi! You heard him with your own two ears. Or are you both blind and  _deaf_  to the truth?!”

After Petra settles down she apologises.

“Excuse me. I didn’t mean to raise my voice with you.”

Levi is thoughtful.

“Don’t mind it. I’m the one in the wrong. You’re right Petra.”

“Sir?”

“I’ve never asked Eren about this. I’ve been a coward.”

Petra jumps, the slight twist of Levi’s lips is alarming. Not a smile nor a smirk but an expression unlike his usual and one of complete self disdain.

“Did you know this Petra. Eren hates cowards.”

People who dare not lift their sword though it is in hand, merely stilled by the fear of what ifs and what nots. Those who do not fight at all when the only other choice aside is death.

If Eren had been born a human in their world no doubt he would have been a fine soldier.

“Then don’t be a coward Corporal. I’ve never known you to be one.”

Petra reaches into her bag and retrieves the box Auruo had entrusted to her. Wrapped up in pale green silk with a flower pattern, it’s entirely unlike him and Petra wonders if Auruo bought such fabric for this occasion or if his grandmother gave him some.

She passes over the box to Levi who accepts it and easily undoes the tight knot on top. The fabric falls around the box, a dark lacquered cherry wood. Levi pushes up the lid and looks within.

A pair of rings.

They are the deep blue green of Eren’s scales.

And his eyes.

Very such eyes had peered at him hours before; through the crack in the bathroom door as Eren had replied to the knock and Levi calling for him, dripping water everywhere to here from where he’d gotten up from the bath. Levi had frowned at the inevitable water stains since Eren wasn’t going to clean it up and he won’t let Levi enter to do so in his stead.

They hadn’t spoken much lately.

Levi closes the box.

“Without fail.”

\--

Petra has finished loading up the pastries and the wedding cake in her cart that’s much smaller than Erd’s and Guther’s. Festivities have already started.

It is a hero of the militia and an important one at that that’s getting married. When Petra had gotten married her wedding too had been celebrated throughout the capitol. Even if you didn’t know her or didn’t particularly care about weddings there was no harm in participating. It was a nice excuse from work and there was food… dance… Petra has to admit her hand might have helped advance the celebration to this state. Flowers even decorate the capitol (the lower portions, the “slums” especially) and she’d gone there early this morning after baking for days now to pass out an assortment of breads and pastry to encourage participation. Despite his history, and especially to the younger folk, Levi is an idol to those from what had been the slums. Their Queen extremely popular to the lower classes for her bettering their quality of life.

While they do not know the whole truth of both these individuals what they did know and choose to believe endeared them to them.

Petra is happy today and wonders if they, Levi’s Squad are perhaps being too sentimental in deciding to arrive to the actual wedding (at Erwin’s place) together. It wasn’t necessary was it? Besides they’d not a clue when the promised would emerge from the maze.

By their customs, guests invited- dance and sing, eat and drink, for days and nights at a designated location, as the promised participate in their maze. The maze can be complicated or simple. Based on budget, preferences, and available talent. Friends and family design it with the couple in mind. The tradition is based on fable: that the connection shared by lovers continues from a life previous and will continue into the next life. The maze only need be completed. When both reach half way through the maze they will know. Typically depending on how the maze is set up the marriage is consummated at that half way point. The two start on separate ends of the maze and had been by themselves until then. On reaching the half way point they meet again. It is then “together” they should complete the rest of the maze by leaving it.

To some that is through one of the ways one of them came. For more intricate mazes there may be another exit entirely. If they both decide to attempt that route or not is up to them. The couple usually doesn’t know, they’d not build the maze.

For Petra her maze had been compiled of many wedding gifts of flour and fruit. It’d been short and simple. The half way point had led into her and her husband’s new home and the exit had been out through the back door of their kitchen. They’d not left for a couple days from the half way point. And even joked about whether or not they should complete the ceremony (though some weddings had gone on for weeks due to this sort of maze) before doing so. Her father had made the maze so she wasn’t surprised it wasn’t complex, but she didn’t want to worry him that he’d think he’d made it complicated- she’d heard her mother and he had gotten out of their maze quickly. Her grandfather had been even more terrible at making complicated mazes.

Petra scowls when Auruo takes a seat next to her, where her husband would have been but he is set on baking until the wedding is complete or he drops. The bread they’d made they’d fashioned into the shapes of fish and shells. Petra ponders if by the time Eren has exited the maze if there will be any left for him to eat, she should set him aside some. She’s very proud of the theme they all decided.

Some of the bread is made with the fish Erd and Guther had provided, there’s more fish to be had in their heavy cart. Raw though. To be cooked at the wedding. Guther is still loading and Erd is checking the horses, they’re awfully close…

“Please be careful where you’re throwing that fish, what if some of it gets on the pastry?”

Erd laughs and Guther waves a hand at her, “You’re worrying too much Petra, besides it’s already rather fishy.”

Erd nods as he hops up onto his side of the seat.

“That’s right, if anything it will only make it fishier and won’t that only make them better? They’ll taste like they came straight from the ocean!”

Petra smiles a little, she’s still annoyed by how close Auruo is (five feet would be too close) if their cart wasn’t so loaded she’d ask them to throw him in the back with the fish but that’d be rude to the dead fish.

“If that happens I’ll save those ones for Eren.”

Guther jumps into his seat aside Erd and they head out of the capitol. Luckily their mantles ensure people move out of the way. It’s slow going and they should have left earlier.

“Damn Petra, this is even a bigger fuss than when you got married.”

If that’d been meant as a jab at Petra she is completely immune.

“Of course! It’s  _Corporal Levi_  that’s getting married. Don’t you think this sort of fuss for one of his position is certainly in order?”

Though he doesn’t like such things.

Auruo almost gulps and Erd and Guther share a glance. While Petra certainly expected and respected the Corporal’s decision not to come to her wedding, to avoid this ceremony and pomp. He’d not even been much for it on victory day for goodness sake- that didn’t mean Petra hadn’t been disappointed (a little) by it. She’d laughed fondly that it was just like him not to show (not knowing that he did show, but there’d been too many people for her to see him).

She’d still looked for him on her wedding anyway they all remembered. There’s no salt to be had in her wounds, she’d baked it all away and indeed, the festivities for the Corporal’s wedding are even grander than hers had been.

They all turn away from how proud she looks over this, it makes them feel like they’d done little to nothing to contribute and that is the real shame. Perhaps they’d had more incentive if Corporal Levi hadn’t come to their weddings but none of them are near tying the knot.

The loudest celebrating is indeed in the used to be slums, it is loud with music and chatter and eating and dancing. It takes the longest from here for them to advance. Petra is remembered from earlier. She’s then loaded with gifts everyone hopes she’ll bear for them to bring to the newlyweds…

\--

Hanji asks him if it’s alright for her to do this in his mother’s place.

This is the quietest Eren has ever heard Hanji be. If she thinks this is what his mother would be like she's totally off.

There are no prodding questions on if this be the way mermaids wed as well (it is not, but while this ritual is strange ceremony is not foreign). She is speaking softly, as they stand outside the massive maze her and Mike and Erwin along with a few others had been working on for weeks for this wedding.

While Eren thinks she’s being unlike herself, he’ll soon see the maze will testament otherwise.

“Well! I will now place the veil over you. You understood what I said earlier about what you have to do yes?”

Eren hesitantly nods as he thinks it over again.

“…once I enter the maze I just have to find Mr Levi right? I can’t leave the maze without him.”

“That’s right.”

“I have to keep the veil on the entire time as only Mr Levi can remove the veil.”

“Correct!”

Eren is a little uncomfortable with how Hanji is speaking but it isn’t unpleasant.

Certainly the opposite.

Hanji lifts the veil, the night sky patterned upon it. It’s the only sky those within the maze will be able to see once they enter it- as it’s enclosed, this maze.

Eren bows his head though Hanji’s height gives her no problems with donning the veil over Eren. He fidgets with it until it’s comfortably set. It is long and trailing, more a cloak in its own right from the massive length. Eren pulls it about him across the dark green light cotton of his wedding wear. The clothing is bulky and no doubt once he enters the warmth of the greenhouse maze he’ll peel them from him. This spring has been rather warm. Summer must be arriving early.

Before Eren enters the maze he looks back from slowed steps to Hanji’s who’s watching him patiently.

“Uhm. Is that all that I need to do? We don’t… have this sort of tradition. My mother would have taught me the song of reunion if…”

“It has to be your mother huh? Then what about your intended?”

“The father teaches his daughter likewise. Of course there’s been some variations…”

“Is it troubling you that you can’t sing on this day? Of course you can sing Eren! It’s your wedding! We humans have a bunch of wedding songs but I doubt any of them can compare to this song of reunion you speak of, so why don’t you do this? Create your own song of reunion. I’m sure no matter what you sing, Levi will answer. Oh, what sort of answer? I don’t know but don’t expect him to serenade back.”

Eren’s smile tells Hanji everything she’d been wondering on that matter.

Levi isn’t a particularly good singer, comparing his singing with the phenomenon of a siren’s song-

Well none of them can rival that can they?

“Thank you, Ms Hanji.”

“Anything for you Mermaid Princess!”

Hanji saw it.

A brief nod without Eren’s usual resistance.

Eren enters the maze.

\--

At the opposite end of the maze.

Another entrance.

Erwin is upon one knee before him.

Traditionally it is the father who does this for his son.

They’re a little old for this sort of charade and Levi had wanted to put his own ring on himself, but Erwin had convinced him otherwise. Eren might not be here to witness this but he’d certainly appreciate no taints to tradition even if they not be his own. So Levi had allowed it. The father places his son’s ring on his finger, teaching him how to do so for his bride.

That is what the reasoning is. Rather crummy Levi has to say. Who in this day and age didn’t know how to put a ring on a finger?

Erwin had laughed at Levi’s scowl as he voiced his opinion not only through his expression but aloud as well.

Rising back up.

“Are you sure you got that down?”

“Ain’t science, though Hanji might botch it up. Perhaps that’d be why.”

Levi looks over his hand, flexes his fingers. Auruo had done well.

“You’ve always been a quick learner. Shall we skip the rest then?”

“Had to be. Ah, yeah. I’d prefer to get this over with as quickly as possible.”

The parts he doesn’t particularly care for. Fuck, since Erwin had had his hand in designing this maze Levi is sure there’s going to be portions of it that will be a pain in the ass to complete. All he wants to see is Eren already. Erwin would notice if he’d brought his sword with him wouldn’t he? It’s unfortunate he can’t just hack through the maze.

Even though it’s his goddamn wedding.

“Levi.”

“What.”

“There’s only Eren’s ring in your pocket correct?”

“It ain’t the only thing but that ain’t a father’s business. I don’t have a single blade on me if that’s what you’re asking.”

On second thought Eren might be upset if Levi just hacked through all the flowers. For fuck’s sake.

They could always just exit the way Eren had come through should Levi destroy his half of the maze.

“Isn’t it about time you enter the maze?”

“Probably. How the fuck should I know- godammit Erwin you got me there. I’ll trust you on this then. Even though you’re an old bachelor. Fuck I still can’t believe this is happening.  _Fuck._ ”

Erwin’s expression now is too kind, it’s getting on Levi’s nerves. It’s the sort of look he sometimes gives Eren when he’s speaking to him. That also gets on Levi’s nerves.

“Don’t be getting cold feet. Or do you no longer want Eren?”

Levi’s answer is almost automatic.

“My feet are rather cold right now, shall I warm them up with a bit of kicking exercises? So long as you’re a willing practice target-  _say that again Erwin and it don’t matter how much blood spills out from you-_ ”

Levi stops speaking on seeing Erwin’s expression, still kind but seeing through his façade as always.

“You won’t. It’d be dirty.”

Levi wants to wash his hand.

“That’s right. You’re always right.”

Levi enters the maze.

\--

Eren is surprised that the maze is on a different level and he falls through.

That which he’d entered from, the branches snap back in place and his eyes adjust to the dimmer light. Not nearly as dark as the night in the human world but the created shade is trying to mimic the calm dark of the sea. Eren can feel that.

What humans think is the dark of the sea… their vision of the ocean floor they have tried to recreate in this maze of flowers. Pinks and blues, yellow and violet. So many different shades so many shapes and sizes of flowers have been mended or bent, cut or grown into formations that try to mimic coral. There are moss covered rocks or plant life that may have something akin to it lying at the bottom of the sea. What humans have seen- this seascape has a mix of likeliness and fantasy to that of the reality. Much like the pictures in the books of the ocean Eren had read in the library. It takes after those images. It’s not like the sea he’d passed to come to the surface. Nor is it exactly like that of his actual home but the bright colours remind him of it nonetheless. The effort and thought alone, along with the comforting shade. How kind everyone is to have done this for him.

Despite the shade this is still a “greenhouse” and it is warm, much warmer than the unfamiliar sea beyond the barrier.

Eren brings a hand up to a particularly bright blue bunch of flowers, hydrangeas- their ruffled pattern like the texture of coral not at all but still he has to swallow the sudden lump in his throat. The Superior Sea… how is everyone doing? That he can’t tell everyone he’s getting married today is…

Eren takes a deep breath and steps out from his shoes, toeing them off. Green like his attire but made of silk. The same pattern of flowers on them Levi had seen to cover the box with the set of wedding rings.

Eren doesn’t need them. He still doesn’t care much for shoes.

Eren removes some of the wedding attire, to the underclothes at the top, then that peeled off as well and keeping the lower garments intact for now. He snaps the veil about him embarrassed it’d started to fall back as he’d done all this.

Advancing forward into the maze with careful curious steps he finds it is full of twist and turns, impossible for a regular human to get through but with his abilities it’s not hard to run along the spiraling tunnels of orange or magenta magnolias or jump each of the large moss padded logs, daisies littered about them- that are the only path over prickly brush or sharp rock.

Only are these obstacles at the first part of the maze, as he advances it becomes less colourful and less challenging, developing into a more normal, traditional format. The walls are green with leaves and flowers trail about here and there, dark lilac. He’s near halfway when he has to walk through a shallow, barely covering his feet, rectangular pond covered in the white and pink of lilies.

The water is fresh and while cool he still wishes they might have made it salt.

Eren regards everything with amazement and wonder, the same of which he’d given to the unfamiliar sea that lead to this world, the same of which he’d expressed at this world.

As he descends deeper into the maze it grows darker and before the lump in his throat can return Eren knocks his brain trying to think up a song that might be worthy, might be akin to that of the song of reunion and is disappointed with himself that he can’t think of any.

What Eren doesn’t know is there isn’t an actual song of reunion. What the mother and father tell their children is as such- they must create their own song. What is to be received is not an answer but the rest of the song. Who starts and who finishes does not matter. It is one song in the end.

But Eren won’t ever know this.

It is almost unconsciously when he does start to sing it is just a regular lullaby that passes through his lips, a song sung seeking comfort. That is all. He’d sung it more than once to Levi. Stroking his sweaty brow and waiting for his eyes to open much like on the sandy shore they’d met.

\--

Levi looks up, the slight tremor of alarm in his limbs from the sudden drop into the dark maze. It’s simple. Green hedges and a dark blue flowered ceiling. But he doesn’t allow this first glimpse to deceive him into thinking this is all it is.

Standing up he almost reaches to loosen his collar and cravat but thinks better of it.

It’s hot here.

Despite the temperature the darkness reminds him of the sea and though he remembers it briefly and does not truly know how deep he’d sunk that time, the breath he’d near lost gets caught in his throat and he wants nothing more than the pull of familiar comforting arms around him, that embrace-

What he is recalling had been Eren’s hold, one that had nearly cost the boy his life.

Levi does not step forward, pondering this.

Remembering what Petra had told him nights before.

He’s still yet to ask Eren.

Levi crouches to untie the strings of his shoes, they’re new much like the rest of his clothing today. He’d wanted to wear something old but most of his clothes were too worn or hand-me-downs. The suit he usually wore had been a combination of things he’d picked from others, the jacket in particular is too large because he’d “borrowed” it from Erwin. It’d been an older jacket, Erwin can’t wear it anymore- it’s too small but still much too big for Levi.

They aren’t extravagant clothes, but because they are new to him they carry that nuance.

Something new.

He’s always experiencing new unfamiliar things with Eren isn’t he?

He peels the socks off and tucks them into the shoes.

Removing the ring from the breast pocket of his jacket he places it in a pocket of his trousers. Folding the jacket when he finds there to be no straying branches to hang it upon conveniently in the nicely trimmed hedge he sets it aside the shoes.

It’s cool grass he steps upon.

There are not many flowers, a few white petal ones peek about the hedges as if to mark where he be going. They grow in amount as he heads forward, around a corner, around another. He’d expected the maze to make him go through much more, but only the slight slope of incline or decline of the earth have been implemented to falter his step.

Then there are steps. Water flows over them. Dark blue lilies, of a different sort to the floating ones Eren had seen, stick up from the sides, the cracks in the tile of the stairs where they reside aside it.

The water appears clean and the stone tile of the stairs is new in the sense that the water had only begun to flow over it recently; there it is not thick with slippery moss or algae across it. Good. It’d be gross.

Levi walks over the few steps to across a small pond completely void of flowers. Sniffing the air he finds the water has salt.

Alarmed that he may not be the only one to have to step through such water, but Eren as well, Levi’s head snaps up as he listens. The familiar notes of a lullaby barely reach through the high walls of the maze that Levi wonders if he’s hallucinating.

That can’t be it.

If it’d not been real he’d hear it with much more clarity for he knows it well.

The small white flowers that’d made up the bread crumbs of a path he will not return down make up his path now and crushing them underfoot Levi heads deeper into the maze.

\--

Eren reaches the halfway point first.

Whoever makes it here first must wait… reaching this point together is not unheard of but Eren had started the maze earlier than Levi.

It’s a square room, larger, wider than the paths he’d traveled down. Composed entirely from left to right, front to back of red roses. The floor covered in its petals. A plush feeling floor that Eren steps onto, his feet clean from the water he’d stepped through before. Petals stick to the back of his feet as he sinks to his knees, the lullaby he’d been singing growing quieter and quieter as his curiosity overtakes whatever doubt that’d been thrumming through him.

Brushing the petals back he finds the floor is plush from the fact it is cushion, stuffed with feathers, much like that of the bed he sleeps in. He’d thought it so interesting how humans needed to sleep on something like this. Because they can’t suspend themselves in the air as Eren’s kind does within the water. The surface is indeed a fascinating place.

Eren lies down on his side, curling up, he covers himself with the veil. Like this it is even darker.

The comfort he’s cultivated drifts as he does into sleep. He wonders when Levi will arrive here.

Maybe Eren should leave this place and go look for him.

Levi can’t survive in the sea without him.

Levi won’t like it much that it is the sea Eren dreams of now, a sea where all his friends and family are, a sea where Levi is as well.

\--

Levi pauses before entering the room.

The entire room is fragrant and too sweet.

Stepping in he walks over to the star covered veil that Eren is no doubt under. He’s probably fallen asleep. He’d been sleeping more frequently lately. Levi crawls under and situates himself aside Eren, prompting a hand up to lift the veil. He doesn’t remove it, not yet.

Lying next to Eren, Levi observes him as Eren had Levi that day he’d first set eyes on Levi, sunk and drowning.

Not truly.

Also not yet.

“And you get so angry when Hanji calls you princess, but you sure like to play sleeping beauty don’t you?”

Levi gathers Eren against him, a hand behind his head as the other cups the side of his face. Levi bends forward and kisses him gently. Not sure why he does it like that if he wants Eren to wake.

Eren’s eyes flutter open and he raises a hand to comb his fingers through Levi’s hair, feeling at the back of his head.

Pulling back Levi tells him- pressing their brows together-

“Sorry. Eren. I was late again. Did you wait long?”

Eren shakes his head.

“Not terribly. Not like the last.”

Eyes adjusting to the dark, Levi runs his hands over Eren’s bare shoulders as he feel Eren’s fingers lace across the back of his neck.

Levi pulls back, holding Eren- as they sit up the veil falls back and pools around Eren, the upper portion of his clothes already gone, the lower portion also pools about him dark green and reminiscent of his no longer existing tail. If light could shine through into this dark place then they’d see the blue.

Levi draws away from Eren and props up upon a knee before him but thinks better of it and instead lowers the other knee, now upon the both of his knees he has one answer to tradition.

He sits up to remove Eren’s ring from his pocket and sits back again, his toes curling against the plush of this pseudo ground. He holds his left hand to Eren-

Eren gives his hand willingly, though he knows not what for.

Levi places the ring around Eren’s finger.

Eren has been watching curiously, trustingly this entire time. The moment the ring comes into contact with his skin Levi can tell Eren recognises it and Eren’s voice is full of emotion as he regards it.

“My scales… they were made into this?”

“An object of custom, ridiculous but you like such sort of things don’t you? Eren.”

Eren holds his hand in the other, touching the ring, he glances to it and then to Levi, the ring on Levi’s finger- as he replies-

“I’m really glad I have gotten to stay with you Levi. I’m happy that it was you I first met in the human world and have been able to experience so many things with. Things further than my imagination, past my dreams, beyond what I longed for. That you would place such value on my scales. I don’t think I made the wrong choice.”

To mermaids.

Aside the song of reunion, the most significant action a pair hoping to join could do, would be to exchange scales. Since it is painful, since it is difficult, and sometimes scales aren’t compatible. But the pain is either tolerated or given up like the match. Scales are exchanged and where the old was, the partner’s scale is placed. Seeing that different coloured scale on the tail of another mermaid told if they were of a pair or not. When new scales grew in the ritual is done once again. Some said the number of scales that’d had to be replaced determined the number of differing notes within the created song of reunion. But only those who had once sung such a song themselves could say.

Eren remembers when Levi had asked him of his scales, how greedy he had been, to not take only one…

That in the end they were used for this purpose…

“I don’t think I have either Eren.”

Levi as well had not made the wrong choice.

The deciding outcome to be as thus, is fortunate indeed.

To save the life that saved his.

Petra had told him hadn’t she? Had he asked Eren what he thought of all this? Still Levi hasn’t yet asked but here be his answer.

He is told the answer over and over as Eren leans forward to kiss him, intertwining their hands, their fingers as he kisses him on the mouth, the chin, the neck and mouth again and Levi realises the way he’d kissed Eren earlier is because of how Eren kisses him is just as this, just as sweetly.

Not like a child, but as one would no matter the age would kiss to one they find dear.

Eren is no longer a child. Levi should know this more than anyone. He’d been the one to make Eren a man after all.

“Hey. Eren.”

“Yes?”

“Earlier you were singing weren’t you?”

“…heard that did you. I beg your forgiveness, it wasn’t my best.”

“Won’t you sing it again?”

“I’m thinking perhaps I won’t. Tis a lullaby and here I thought sleeping would be the last thing on your mind.”

Eren has fallen into an older speaking pattern. Levi folds his hands over Eren’s and feels them to be shaking.

“Fool. Then how about that song you first sung me? Will you allow me it?”

Eren shakes his head.

The look of his sudden distress is alarming. And Levi thinks it over, that Eren would not sing for him during such a time is not with deeper meaning but greater reason.

“Alright. Not now, but don’t think I won’t wring out a different sort of song from you.”

Levi wraps an arm around Eren’s waist and pulling him forward onto his lap, his next kiss is not so sweet, is not gentle, but Eren accepts it all the same, greedily, eagerly, those shaking hands now sturdy fingers twisting into the fabric of his shirt, moving to untie the cravat at his throat, undo the buttons as they have on many other shirts before as Levi undoes the ties to the rest of Eren’s clothes. The heap these clothes are piled into is a little untidier than usual. Levi pulls from his pocket, unscented oil. He’s glad for it to carry none given the fragrance of the room. The rest of the clothes are piled away. Slicking his fingers, himself and reaching to feel inside Eren, he’s glad he can still smell and taste the salt of the sea as he kisses and bites the underside of Eren’s chin, licking his throat- he’s more than a little surprised to hear what Eren says next.

Between breathless sighs escalating into moans with however far he pushes his fingers- Eren expresses how wonderful it is that Levi tastes of salt, smells of it. Levi muses, is it merely his sweat? Their sweat? Mingling. Or had it been from the water he’d tread through earlier before? Whatever it be, it makes it seem to him Eren’s cries all the more pleasurable as he enters him and Eren’s fingers tangle themselves once more in his hair, the fingers of the hand with the ring twine to his as Levi moves in and out of Eren knowing he’ll not hear this song again, for the one at present is not ever like the last.

Eren kisses him again, biting, enough to draw blood. Levi’s heart gives a sudden lurch as he tastes it and Eren likewise. He feels the thick, hot heat of Eren’s cum against his stomach before climaxing as well. Admiring how Eren’s eyelashes flutter as he blinks against the sensation of being filled, how hot it is, how much hotter it is than his flesh and the greenhouse maze and the summer and the tropic temperature of the dark Superior Sea.

They lie against the other until Levi can bear the sticky mess upon them no longer. Getting up to rummage about his clothes again he fishes out the handkerchiefs he usually carries and wipes them down into adequacy. Eren protesting when he’d gotten up and pulled out, complaining for the heat and how it must not be lacking.

Levi calls him a damn brat and Eren kisses him with a bite. His mouth roaming, his teeth upon Levi’s throat as Levi caresses a hand over the back of his neck, trailing the back of his knuckles over Eren’s abs feeling how much stronger he’s returned in with this more human body, frowning at the brief remaining stickiness he’d been unable to clean up.

When Eren bites rather too roughly, Levi pulls him back by the hair and kisses him as such over the mouth, probing his tongue inside before licking Eren’s lips, the salt of tears that’d been at the corner of his eyes, now on his cheeks and Levi’s tongue. Levi kisses him over the mouth again. Embracing the other they lie down. Too many of the flower petals are in Eren’s hair and Levi's as well. Eren picks some of them out of Levi’s hair, brushing his fingers through it. Levi does not bother to do the same for Eren, thinking the flower petals pretty where they are.

They remain in the maze for some time.

But they are together so they are not lost.

\--

If the maze were designed differently then it’d be more accommodating for them to stay longer.

But it was not built upon their home.

And so.

With Eren lying against him, his dark hair brushing the bottom of his chin, his legs trailing beyond Levi’s, entangled. Eren can hear Levi’s heartbeat and had been lulled by it. It is the only true song Levi can sing him.

As if it’d not occurred to him, Eren looks a little confused at what Levi has to say now.

“Shall we return to the surface?”

Those words didn’t particularly relate to him.

Eren rises up and plops himself over Levi, their stomachs upon the other, Levi gives a small oof (Eren has gotten heavier) that Eren doesn’t even bother to laugh at too lost in thought as he cups a hand over Levi’s face, asks.

“Must we already?

There isn’t a time limit to how long a couple can stay in the maze. That’s why so much food is distributed during the weddings, to ensure the guests have enough to sustain them as they waited for the married pair to emerge from the maze, whenever that’d be.

As colourful as the maze had been, bright tents and carpet and cushion, various odds of furniture from Erwin’s house had been loaned to them, along with his estate to those who’d made it over and had been invited for Eren and Levi’s wedding.

All had been too much but it wasn’t like Levi could stop them once he’d given them the ok to start. This sort of coordination and taste in finery, it isn’t Hanji he can blame this time, no this is Erwin’s doing… and Petra’s.

“There is still a bit more of the ceremony left.”

Eren had been told various things about weddings so Levi still isn’t sure what he knows. That and with his own perception of what they should be like- this was getting too complicated.

Levi attempts to lessen the harshness of what he intended to say.

“…it has to be completed right?”

What he really wanted was to get it over with and for everyone else to go the fuck away. In reality it was he and Eren that’d be going away. After returning to their room in Erwin’s place they’d pack and set off for their honeymoon. Levi intends to show Eren more of this world. They are strong enough. The archaic tribes beyond the woods. The snow top of the mountains. The desert plains where the heat probably be too dry, to the small fishing towns of the southeast where Erd had come from, through the red hills where hot springs are and towns just as small. The world did not compromise of just the island they’d met and the capitol. While not many had ventured forth as far as Levi intended with Eren, this was a new world Historia had built that gave them this opportunity. Without war, without limit, without restraint- he could allow this couldn’t he? He’d fought in the militia to not only free his comrades, the people, but himself as well. Eren deserves that sort of freedom too.

Desires it in a way Levi had forgotten until they’d met.

Levi is a little surprised at Eren’s smile.

While Levi has placed emphasis on how Eren is loyal in taking all the necessary steps and respecting older traditions, he is using Eren to hide his own form of comfort at following the rules. Because so many have been broken and in their place others established. It might have been even too quick for he.

The world has changed so much.

Under Historia.

And since Levi had escaped death that final time.

“Of course. Let us go then. Let’s finish this, Levi.”

Levi pinches Eren’s cheek, for using a tone with him that almost sounds like he was going to give an order.

They help each other into their clothes, Eren trying to smooth out whatever wrinkles that’d appeared on Levi’s and Levi scolding him to hold still as he tried to tie the fastenings into a bow much neater than the one Hanji had done.

When that is done Levi picks up the veil, shaking it out roughly but with little effort, he has Eren don it once more. The veil is typically left in the maze and retrieved by the family to be used either again or saved for collection by the couple later, but Levi has decided it might be a necessary precaution. He doesn’t want everyone to see Eren. He doesn’t know who’s shown up.

Eren wraps it about himself and then upon his second thought- he extends it over to cover Levi.

Taking Levi’s hand.

“It has to be together, isn’t that correct?”

“You’re not mistaken.”

Levi grabs with his free hand the end of the veil and twists it in his grip to keep it in place, since Eren is taller than he.

The grip his hand has upon Eren’s is much stronger.

“Let’s go. Eren.”

Levi had not brought a single blade.

He’d mentioned it before hadn’t he?

Eren is his sword.

Stronger, faster... perhaps not so lighter at this point in time.

They stop before the opposite end of the room, it’d been enclosed.

But Eren extends his free hand and morphs it into a claw, once more had sun been beaming into the room the phantom shine of scales could be seen upon the surface of his skin. It is an ability they have, merpeople, to relocate their scales and create formidable weapon of their hands, turning them to steeled claws. Resuming them to their human form when for whatever reason they’d initiated the change, had passed. It’s mainly used to hunt and to fend predators. Eren had told Levi many times of the narwhals that always wanted to invade their territory. Levi had never heard of such a beast.

Eren rips through the maze. If this had been the intention of the others, Levi doesn’t think it’s unlikely. He’ll have to have something other than words with Hanji later. Erwin too. Much later, but for now-

Before them a dark narrow path awaits.

It cuts into the earth, they must tread further underground before returning to the surface.

They’re really horrible people.

Had war molded them as such?

Eren’s hand reverts and he clutches the veil as well. Clutching Levi’s hand all the tighter, they advance forward down into the depths of the real exit of this maze.

\--

The underground path is made of stones and gems that are natural to the underground portion of this area. No doubt it is by them that the Smith family established their wealth and thus gave weight to their name in the world at first by this means.

They walk carefully, some of the rocks luminescent and lighting the way though Eren would not have needed it and Levi has dwelled within much darker places than most.

Ironically it’s not through the earth Levi regrets leaving his shoes, it’s once they emerge he’ll be having issues. Though he supposes his original purpose for leaving them behind is being fulfilled. Eren who often went about barefoot, complaining of the weight, the tediousness of garment- to feel the human world as he does, and walk upon it as such. Was not bad.

They emerge from the maze.

Shaking off whatever bit of debris that’d fallen on the veil without removing the veil itself.

It’s not too soon they are seen and a great wallop and yelling is heard as their guests surround them. To Eren’s great joy, music is composed upon instruments of brass, string and wood. Along with the voices of many, part of Levi’s squad included and other persons from the militia and their relatives. Both having no family of their own here or there, this is the closest Levi and Eren can achieve. Or so Erwin had reasoned. Was he never planning on getting married himself, the bastard, and so that is why he’d planned such a ruckus? Is what Levi is thinking as they’re accompanied as per tradition around the back of the estate, with singing and dancing, Eren is barely containing himself to not join in and it’s with a low but heavy curse that Levi relents, warning Eren that the veil must stay intact otherwise discipline might be merited.

The cry Eren gives at this is more than joyous as he flips the veil about them and maneuvers it with far more familiarity than Levi thought he possessed; so it be that they dance along this flower littered path, first made of white- they blend into pink and red, violet then the darkest blues as they reach their destination, music and dance of celebration shadowing their every move and determining it. Eren is more than up to the challenge and it’s Levi who wonders if he can keep this up.

As they ascend their step on the first violet flowers, rounding to the front of the house at last Levi calls for dutiful reverence. Hands held. They walk the rest of the way, lightly and controlled, regaining their breath with ease despite the exertion of earlier as they step upon the midnight blue flowers. Much unlike the bright clear blue sky now. Early morning.

Queen Historia waits for them at the entrance of the Smith estate, there she will bestow upon them her blessing. Historia is beautiful enough to be a being from the heavens, a goddess, they praise her. But she is as human as the rest of them. It is not a divine blessing she places upon them but one a ruler must give. Had they lived elsewhere, resided elsewhere it might have been the mayor or the eldest in the town to give them such a blessing. It is a token. A gift itself. The old world they gave up but in the new, still the shadow of what was hangs over them.

They kneel before her.

Erwin is at her left and her knight, Ymir is at her right.

Together the two hold before her the vessel that carries the medium of the blessing. It is within the vessel she always uses for such occasions. Before her days of rule, this vessel, an ordinate cup. A grail. Gold with jewels of red and blue ink saturated with that of crushed crystal, compose the design and markings upon it. Roses and wings, a unicorn. Along it and about it, with writing so old Ymir could barely read it. It used to be only members of the royal house could use this for their weddings. But Queen Historia had done away with that and now she uses it as she sees fit for all of the people, should she be the one to validate their ceremony.

What goes into the cup is the medium.

Petra and her husband’s had been flour, Erwin remembers his parents had used gems from that underground Levi and Eren had tread, many farmers use soil from their fields, seed being too precious but wheat at times alright, many nobles used wine or gold dust. Flowers were of course popular as well, especially to city folk.

Erwin and Ymir kneel aside her, bringing the cup to rest on the ground, both on one knee, she leans over the grail. Queen Historia submerges her hands into the medium within the grail, cupping her hands, the water runs down her fingers as she lifts her hands up out. The medium is the same water Levi had stepped through, salty, familiar- it is sea water.

It is only a second or two she must wait for Levi and Eren to pull back the veil to bear themselves to her for this blessing. Queen Historia tosses the seawater over the married pair.

It seeps through as thick drops, upon their heads and into their hair, down across their faces, it drips into the collar of Levi’s shirt and across Eren’s collarbone.

Levi takes up the veil once more and placing it over them, they both gaze up upon Queen Historia as they continue to kneel.

Their guests kneeling behind them as well, the music long hushed since they stepped foot upon the blue flowers. Queen Historia takes a deep breath and inhales the scent of the medium as they need not. They know it well but she, it is the distant vision on the horizon from her castle window.

“Levi Yeager! Eren Yeager! Reunited at last, be on your way! Your long journey awaits you!”

After saying custom words, she lifts the grail (a few time she’d almost dropped it at earlier ceremonies had given her practice) and holds it herself, Ymir places a hand at her elbow and they depart from the steps. Erwin rising and stepping aside after opening the door to the mansion so Levi and Eren may enter. Eren’s hand is still in Levi’s as they enter the mansion and head upstairs to the room they’d been staying.

Ymir escorts Queen Historia back to her carriage, through the burst of applause, music and chatter. As they see from the window Erwin closing the doors to the mansion, Krista asks her- the two of them within the carriage. The people cheering after them in thanks and for safe travel

“Well?”

Ymir nods to her.

“There is no mistake. That boy… is the same as me.”

\--

While the wedded pair pack and prepare for their honeymoon, the guests celebrate in anticipation of the send off (whenever that will be), as custom dictates, the baker of the wedding cake distributes it to the guests. First to the head of the family, in this case Erwin and Hanji are given a piece, there is a lot of laughing, especially when Hanji cuts her slice in half and proceeds to shove one half in her mouth all at once. Petra asking if that is where Eren learnt how to eat in such a manner or vice versa. Hanji leaves to find something to wipe her frosting, cake crumb smeared mouth. Levi and his handkerchiefs and disdain aren’t near her and for once it’s inconvenient. Petra then sets aside pieces for the newlyweds, they can either eat them before they leave or on the way. Only then after do the other guests get some. They’d settled on lemon cake. That of which the Queen had packed quite a bit of to eat on her journey back to the capitol, a true honour, that made Petra a little stingy to others (mainly Auruo who kept pestering her for more than one piece even though he was still eating his first and even Mike! Along with the guests he’d brought along had been relentless) Erwin says she can’t blame them. Her baking skills are on a completely different level than anyone has ever tasted.

Praise her all they like, she wouldn’t relent unless they promised to visit more often! With Levi and Eren soon to depart, who else would eat all the apple pastry?

The apples she’d preserved with Eren and more apples she’d preserved on her own, is her wedding gift to them.

Erd finds this conversation all good and well (the fish he and Guther had brought being enjoyed much too thoroughly to Levi’s chagrin by Eren upstairs, Levi is about to throw Eren back into the tub if he insists on eating so messily) but it’s missing something.

Guther plops this something on the small table they’re all sitting about.

It’s a bottle of wine.

Suddenly Hanji is back and she’s brought glasses. To drink from.

Half are half full as Erd attempts to pour into the glasses evenly but Hanji keeps moving them about and it’s the cups that need to go onto the table not the wine itself, when Erwin wipes his mouth and sets upon the table another bottle of wine. Older. Finer.

Another awed cry is heard round their table and Hanji has Erwin fill the empty glasses of her other hand with them. By then everyone seeks sense, and each grab a glass from her piled grip. Some glasses more empty or more full than others. The wine is finished off pronto but more is procured as other guests join them and Petra becomes generous with the cake.

\--

In the depths of the Superior Sea.

They are trying to solve a mystery.

It has been one that has been haunting their every move, their every glance, their every breath.

Why was it that when their friend, Eren Yeager went missing, no one went to look for him?

They’d filed a report with the police, there’d been that big commotion after the girls festival… that someone was missing. That it was the son of the esteemed Dr Grisha Yeager surely meant something would be done?

But after that big ruckus, and they were told something would be done… nothing was actually done. It actually seemed like people were forgetting about it. Despite that nothing ever happened like this before, that it was unthinkable, was it the fact that it was unthinkable that people were forgetting it? Ignoring it? Encouraged to acknowledge it as never happening?

They all thought it was weird.

Then Reiner and Bertholdt decided, they would go look for Eren. Both being exceptionally strong physically, a sense of duty to their friend who was like a little brother to them, and also unable to give up their sense of justice that what was going on, whatever it be- is wrong.

They too had left for outside the barrier.

Annie had called them foolish, she had not want them to go.

And when they too were gone for too long a time and no fuss was given over them… despite that it was forbidden to leave the barrier… was this the real reason? That they all thought no one left the barrier, because those that did meant they no longer “exist”?

But they still exist to them.

Annie. Armin. Mikasa. Jean. Connie.

Their friends still reside in them, their memory does not go away. Was this something only adults do? Pretend nothing is wrong. Pretend there is nothing beyond that of the Superior Sea.

Mikasa could not forgive it.

And Armin could not forget it.

The expression of Eren’s father’s face before he went missing.

His mother too.

Like the time of their early youth when reorganization was being considered, conducted. Only this time extermination wasn’t being done in the open. For their sake. It was being hidden. Armin cannot even rationalize for sure that what happened to Eren’s parents was death.

With that… had Eren really left the barrier? What if he’d just been taken away like his parents?

Without a doubt Eren sought what laid beyond the barrier.

Armin knows this.

Mikasa too.

When asked if Eren be dead she had told him with certainty, conviction anchored within her voice. Eren must be alive.

She’s still here.

She would know if he’d died.

Armin decided then he’d find the truth. Why when anyone went missing it was accepted. Why it happened. And what they could do to bring Eren back.

Armin had gone to the Yeager’s home and beneath the rubble they’d dug. He, Mikasa, Jean and Connie. Annie hanging with them in passing. She won’t dirty her hands with the effort of this. They’d dug into what Armin remembers Eren mentioning before, how his father’s study was so weird and underground and how he wouldn’t let anyone in.

They dug an opening into it, that which had been covered and found it deeper than they’d thought.

It had long twisting paths, unfathomably dark even to them. This darkness was trying to hide the truth, what Armin thought might be the reason. And it came to be known to them, as he flicked upon the odd buttons and knobs of the contraption within this cave, made of technology their kind had not had but another.

Grey light flickered into the dark of the cave, bright because of it.

With its light it lights up the clear stones that stick upon this one room in this cave. Growing. Latched.

A girl shows up on the smooth square rock above them, looking at them but not seeing them. This is a record of sorts. Her voices flickers and warps as her image does every now and then.

“…go back… we cannot live anywhere else… can’t go back… the serum is yourself…”

Armin listens carefully.

“…if they found out papa isn’t from 0 they’d not allowed him into the colony…”

To her manner of speaking, much like their own. She possesses a tail just as they, and might have even created this record here. Listening to what she has to say, Armin comes to one conclusion. Despite the missing passages. Thinking between them.

“…can’t stay… even though we’re from them… it’s like them to be in the light, take part in the light then…”

“What is it?” Jean asks and Mikasa swims to float alongside Armin, placing a hand on his shoulder, brow creased at the expression he’s making.

The record flickers flickers flickers,

“…I’m Maria Yeager, the year is-”

The same name.

“Is it as you thought Armin?”

Armin nods, voice full of emotion but otherwise absolute in the support of his deduction.

“Yes. It is as I thought.”

Annie looks over and Connie still gazes at the image of the girl whose audio cuts in and out. The image won’t hold up for much longer.

Armin continues looking down upon the ground then back up along the wall to where Maria is shown.

He tells them what he has been thinking for a long time.

“We were human once. We are originally human. That’s why we cannot leave. Humans exist outside the barrier!”

If Eren, Reiner and Bertholdt had made it beyond the barrier where would they see humans? Could they? Why can’t they?

Annie uncrosses her arms, eyes intense and unseeing- seeing-

“And so? What will this information do for us?”

Armin turns to her and she almost, just almost flinches back upon seeing his resolve.

“We can save the others. Eren. Your brothers. The whole colony.”

Armin starts to break off the glowing stones in the cave. It is much like the vial Ymir had drank from. While they are not rock they are still the solid form of that “witch’s potion”, it is soft, jelly like- but firm. Designed to exist in this sea.

Armin picks enough to fill the bottom of his bag.

The light flickers and dies.

The only light remaining that which he’d gathered, but it too soon fades.

It’s enough to lead them out of the cave.

\--

They ask Jean to consult Marco on what’s going on with the police, and if they can cover up for now their findings. It’s tough work reburying what they’d dug up and to the trained eye it can easily be seen what had happened. Even so with that, they need time.

Armin feels bad for deceiving Jean. Annie asks him as such.

He’d asked Jean to ask Marco about these details, to hide from Jean what they intended to do. No doubt if they told him what their true objective was for buying time, he’d try to stop them. To protect them. To save Mikasa. But Armin needs her and her strength if they’re going to save Eren. And Mikasa wants to do nothing else.

Connie accompanies them to the edge of the barrier. They wait for Annie who brings back what Armin asked.

Reiner, Bertholdt, and she- they have been together forever. Not related with blood but like siblings. They practiced sparring a lot and in the training grounds, blood and scales, clashed, spilled, torn. She knows without a doubt which shed scales is theirs and which is not theirs.

She gives the scales to Armin who packs them in the small bag he has tied about him.

He asks Mikasa to let him borrow her knife and she does.

His hand trembling, it steels with resolve as he cuts from himself some scales.

Connie exclaims and Annie sighs. Armin must use a knife because he is not skilled with honing his claws. Mikasa carries a knife because she possesses tentacles. Armin places his scales in the bag. Some of his blood drifts in the water. Turning to Mikasa.

“Sorry Mikasa, it’ll be far more painful for you.”

But it must be done.

If they are to return here that is what is required.

So Maria had said.

“It’s fine. I don’t mind.”

She takes back her knife, her hands steady as usual but before she can slice the end of one of her tentacles off Annie stops her, a hand at her wrist. The one with the knife.

“I will do it for you. Have you ever deliberately hacked off one of your own limbs before? It’s difficult.”

Mikasa is glaring at Annie and Annie glares back, but Mikasa relinquishes the knife to her. She says nothing in reply. Annie will make a clean cut. There is kindness here both girls will not admit. While Mikasa is strong no doubt it’ll hurt, a different steady hand to cut is much preferred. That or Annie is just-

Before Armin can ask Mikasa to reconsider Annie cuts a bit of one of Mikasa’s tentacles off. They tie up the end to cease the bleeding for now.

Armin opens his bag to pull out a couple of the jellies.

Showing it to Mikasa he explains once they find “land” they will eat them.

He turns to Annie after. Annie like Mikasa is strong, though she tries to hide it. If she comes along it'd no doubt be great help. But-

“Annie. I know you don’t want to go. It isn’t safe. There’s a high possibility we might die. There’s a possibility we might not return. But just as there is that there is now the possibility we will return, and not just us but with Eren, Reiner and Bertholdt. I cannot stay here if such a possibility even exists. That’s why, please wait for us. Even after everyone has forgotten us, please remember us.”

Connie cuts in between them.

“Hey hey hey now, what was all that with Jean then? I know he’s not the smartest, and I’m not either but couldn’t we have kept him in the loop? Where are you guys going? And what is that stuff for?”

Connie points to what Armin and Mikasa holds and Armin tells Connie the truth.

“Maria’s father developed it. We were originally made from humans. It’s the trigger that’ll have us turn into humans. We are going to the human world. It’s where Eren went.”

Connie hangs back, what Armin is saying is crazy, crazy but- it makes sense-

“Humans created us out of themselves. Then rejected us so now we live here denying them. Is that it?”

Mikasa asks and Armin nods.

“Probably. We won’t know for sure until we go see it with our own eyes. But I think that’s probably it.”

Annie speaks up and they all turn to her. She doesn’t speak too often.

“You’re right Armin. I don’t want to go. This is my home. It’s terrible that nobody cares the others went missing, it’s horrible so many of the things that happen here, but still even after that it… still has to be way safer than this place of humans you intend to go to. If what you say is true, that we left because humans did not want us, then it surely can’t be hospitable to us. That’s even worse. A place where you’re not wanted.”

Armin nods. He does not disagree.

“Even so, we have to go.”

Annie turns away.

“I will remember you.”

Armin puts away the jellies and strings the bag tight, taking Mikasa’s hand they turn to the barrier, ready to depart.

“Wait! Wait! WAIT A MOMENT!”

They both turn back startled at Connie, his voice desperate, he’d not want to go but he too must. They thought he wouldn't want to either.

“I’m coming with you! I want to see it too, the truth. I know my family won’t like it one bit and I’m going to be putting them through a lot for it but I have to know.  _Why are we here?_ ”

There’d already been a big risk to begin with investigating the Yeager house.

He’d already taken it.

And he wasn’t the son of any Doctor’s or warrior family so… maybe he’d be overlooked? Overlooked entirely like those already they knew not about. Perhaps his parents could be just as all the other adults. Even as he considers this he knows they won’t be. Which makes this decision all the more painful. Mikasa has no one else, Armin his elderly grandfather who hides away in an archive already on the verge of confiscation, but Connie-

If he does not go he will regret this.

Both options hold nothing but hardship.

He’d always wanted to make his parents proud, he’d been thinking of maybe joining the police too you know? Jean was going to eventually, his friend Marco had joined. Jean was speaking with Marco right now on all this stuff. Probably getting really flustered because it did make you sound crazy to anyone that had no idea what was going on… he still doesn’t know what’s going on. That was driving him crazy too.

He’ll just have to be crazy then.

“If anyone does come looking for me or tries to go after my folks just tell them I went insane and got like, lost in the reefs alright? You don’t have to remember me after that Annie.”

It’s with more resolution than she intended and what they were supposed to hear, that Annie tells Connie.

“No. I’ll decide that. If I’m going to remember the rest of you, what’s one more?”

Mikasa holds out a hand for Connie. She’ll be pulling them through the barrier. Armin isn’t sure if there is anything there to stop them but there’s the high possibility there is.

Annie cuts a scale from Connie who takes it much better than Armin, but flinches all the more- they store his scale away in the bag too. Annie ties it real tight. Armin is wondering if Mikasa could carry the bag as well, along with dragging them too but it might be too much. It’ll just have to be his struggle. He knows the truth about the contents. It’s their only way home and their only means to survive outside it. He must not drop it.

Before they leave.

“I have one more thing to say.”

Armin turns to Annie. The others likewise.

She’s talkative today.

When the police come to question her she won’t have a word for them.

“You must return home. If it’s the last thing you do.  _You all must return home._ ”

Otherwise don’t go.

Armin’s voice almost breaks as he tells her.

“You really are much kinder than you want yourself to seem.”

By now Mikasa has had enough of their chatter. Latching onto them a grip that seems more likely to the break their bones than protect them she pulls them with her. They swim out past the barrier, as Eren had, what seemed so long ago.

They are going to save him.

They are going to return home with him to the Superior Sea just as Annie had asked of them.

At that time that is what they were sure they’d do.


	10. Chapter 10

Over the sound of leaves, rustling through the cool breeze is the clomp of heavy hooves.

These horses they’re riding are Erwin’s wedding gifts to them and Levi has to admit, they are well chosen. Large horses to carry their hefty weight, as they have not only themselves but satchels of loaded supplies for their journey. The horse Levi rides is a dark brown, almost black when there’s no sunlight. The horse Eren rides upon is the same chestnut brown of the fish shaped pastry he is biting into. It might be a little stale from the slight resistance Eren’s teeth encounter, but his bite would surely have been less potent had they not been sharp.

They will journey to many places far, some places Levi has not been to since his days in the militia. Places where he and Erwin and the rest of them had traveled to make negotiations for the building and security of Historia’s kingdom many years ago.

They travel through the woods first, those dark forbidden woods that are no longer as intimidating as they’d been before, when they’d been hunting and being hunted. Now they just hunt. Rabbits and deer, bear and fowl. Levi tries to teach Eren some sword play, he’s not bad but he’s much more capable with a knife or dagger. He tries the bow and finds it too cumbersome though his shot is accurate. Levi ventures to teach him a thing or two about rifles and is pleased when Eren is most capable with that. His shots take time but they are precise and he hits his mark most often with only one shot. Eren’s preferred method to hunt is still by his own hands, the way they hunt in his colony he tells Levi. Though spears and nets, traps are favoured methods as well.

There is much prey is the warmth of spring, and the onset of summer makes many languid. While the dark of the woods makes everything cool, Eren doesn’t have to don much of the dreaded layers. It is not for long as they make their way into the mountains.

Despite the added bulk of their kills, the pelts and furs and meat they will offer to the tribe in the mountain when they arrive. The horses fair well and Levi teaches Eren how to tend to them as well. Eren jokes Levi speaks much more softly to the horses than even to he and this merits a long put off kick to the shin.

Even while it is summer, into the mountains there is snow that grows heavier the higher and deeper they go. There is always snow here. The negotiations Erwin had made with the people who reside here so far away it seemed they weren’t part of the kingdom at all, was to assure them, that the wars that were being held in what this folk called “The Great Valley” would not harm them. Their Queen had no intention of conquering those that had no relation to her unless they wish it. It was also to confirm that the mountain be impenetrable. There are people far beyond these mountains that lined the entire north of the continent. Few had been to the other side. Erwin had wanted to confirm that should a nation far stronger than their torn one reside past this stronghold, then they wouldn’t be brought into this strife and cause further complications.

The snow tribes of the high mountains, only visited by the merchant traveler, the curious nobleman, the devout priest looking to convert them; have not had visitors for some time. The militia had asked of their cooperation for their protection, should members of the disbanded church seek refuge or seek passage through the mountains (a path that of which not many even of the tribe knew, or cared for as it most often meant your life… those who went did not return, the elderly sometimes went on this journey in hard times) then they would be contacted.

This agreement was reached and condoned, the mountain tribe had little affection for the priests that’d tried to come and convert them from their old gods.

Really, when that monster in the forbidden woods had started to manifest and the old shrines appeared far less empty than they should, perhaps the matter should have also been taken to these folk first.

But it is a long journey.

By the time they reach the foot of the mountain tribe’s village they are bundled up in some of the pelts they’d intended as gifts for their visit. Least it shows they are good and of use.

A clamour is raised about the village as they arrive, they’d been sent a hawk in advance about their visit, that is semi-diplomatic (on Erwin’s part) that Levi must act through to the extent of his duty, and the other that is merely for his own sake. Speaking with the head of the tribe, Levi goes over the state of Queen Historia’s Kingdom, the recent ongoings, and asks finally about the old gods. It is from the head of the tribe that Levi is told of the ancients who’d lived in the mountains, the half human, half birds. Angels and devils, yes- gods.

When Levi emerges from the tent of the head, he sees everyone is riled up in excitement on the excuse of visitors for celebration. There’s already drinking, and much of the meat they’d brought being cooked on the customary spits of the fire pits. Most food is cooked over on a spit here. Eren watches all the smoke in some amazement. Huddled within the mountains, there’s little wind and the smoke drifts upward without pause.

He’s already distributed the pelts and furs that will be fashioned into clothing or blankets for the tribe. Some are of which they’d never encountered. The rabbit fur is marveled at. The bear hide the tribe has all agreed will be used to create a grand cloak for the head. She laughs and tells them to not waste it on her but use for her heir, a stick thin son much too tall who needs the warmth surely, and maybe the bulk of it will build him muscles like those on the ones of their visitors.

There’s laughter, discussion, some set off to hunt so there will be more food, seeing Levi and Eren’s bounty, they too wish for such success of the hunt and deem the couple’s luck for the kill might rub off onto them while they’re here in their presence.

Levi and Eren are given clothes for the snow. Boots and caps and gloves and heavy wool underclothes, fur lined coats with patterns of wings and hooves. Such is those for the entire tribe. Upon it is lovely embroidery that aligns in the stitches of the tents as well. They move throughout the mountains, this tribe. Along it. It is only at this time they reside here where they are now.

When the food is ready they eat heartily, charred meat and small root vegetables with spices that don’t exist here but are imported from traveling merchants. Making the hot food spicy is their most favoured method given the cold. The alcohol is welcomed too, and burns enough that Levi wonders if he should bring some back for Erwin who will no doubt want to share it with Pixis should they meet again.

Eren opts out of the alcohol and has warmed goat’s milk instead, there are many goats here and sheep, along with other animals that are customarily regarded as herds; but these animals are scattered about the cliffs of the mountains. Much of the food for them is stored gathering from the rushes of the trees that are at the foot of the mountain. The trip is made three times a year. If they’d been here sooner they are told they would have seen the tribe’s methods and then they’d be bound to stay. Knowing their ways, the mountain tribe despite their isolation and deference to that in the great valley, they do not mind if you become one of their own- but it must be truly.

Some joke it is a shame they are wed, for many wouldn’t mind to take them as a husband for their hunting prowess. A skill that is admired so much in places such as these, you will not hear such admiration in the capitol. Levi takes a sip of the warmed goat’s milk in Eren’s mug by leaning over for it. It’s still rather full. Eren has been distracted listening to all the talk, learning all he can. Levi chides him to drink more deeply. Otherwise it may cause insult.

Eren does as he’s told.

He likes the mountain tribe. The accent of their language is more akin to his own, some of their vocabulary is shared, being dated. Once the mountain tribe had resided in the great valley but the gods had bided them be elsewhere and so into the mountains they went.

To thrive, to live, to fly- the gods had once resided aside them, not above them- it was told in legends of old. Until mankind became too wicked, thus unworthy.

They learn this from many tales, many versions shared and compared round the food spits as they finish their drink and bonfires lit up in the night, soon drums and the clink of bangles fill the air and drift as steady as the smoke. A wooden flute here and there along with the thumping of feet and hands as a dance starts and seems it will not end. Eren is nearly hopping where he sits before Levi cannot stand it any longer and gives him permission to join the dancers who have been trying to pull him into the pattern of their hip swaying and turning.

He’s soon completely in tune with them all, and though Levi warned him not to sing, a few notes escape him amongst everyone else’s voices. Overjoyed, over excited and incapable of sustainable control. Not when hands are linked and the drums beat so heatedly in harmony, for a moment the crisp cold air is not of the mountains but the deep cool waters of home.

When Levi deems, as the sun peeks over the tops of the mountains, bright yellow, the tinge of orange missed as they cannot see the flat of the horizon as they can in their own land. He pulls Eren out from the dance, almost caught into it himself, had Eren not been so weak from dancing for hours now. Breathless and without complaint as Levi hefts Eren into his arms to carry him. Wrapping him up in the night of the veil. The tent that’d been erected for them is as dark as the night and so warm inside they remove their clothes near instantly. They do little sleep in that tent. Despite Eren’s fatigue and Levi’s warning to not sing, this tent that’d been designed to keep whatever heat that’s generated within to stay in, isn’t sound proof.

Their hosts insist come many a morning Eren deserves a drink of alcohol. Only children abstain from it. Despite not being a child, Eren cannot bring himself to become accustom to the taste.

\--

After around a month they descend from the mountain.

The clothes are kept, insisted to be wedding gifts, along with provisions, that alcohol for Erwin and a tent along with more suitable clothing the tribe had been given from travelers going to the west from the east where Levi and Eren are headed, are now given to them. What wind there is billows through the tan travel worn folds of the desert clothing. Deep stooping hoods and strapping sandals upon layers of cloth.

It is a drastic change from what they’d been wearing to fit the drastic change of the environment and shows the fickleness of mother nature as they bid farewell and journey southeast. Into the desert, hot all the time, not only because it be summer still. It is a brief journey, you do not want to travel through the sands if you were not born to them. A friend of Mike’s meets up with them midway, a person called Nanaba who also served in the militia and who shows them how to obtain water from the few plantlife that survive in the desert. How to erect a tent on the sands. Shows them when not to walk and where not to walk, they guide Levi and Eren on the fringes where they’d deemed the wisest to stay. Nanaba directs them until they’re certain the rest of the journey can be made in the cool of night. They share some of the provisions as thanks and wave farewell with each faltering sway of Nanaba’s bright lantern. The sky an inky black and indigo as they leave the desert and hobble out into a progressively greener landscape. Marveling at the stars all the way, not even trying to count them.

Heading south, they are going to visit the fishing tribe Erd hails from.

\--

As they draw closer south Levi glances at Eren’s face.

It has become ever more alert, looking straight ahead as he recognizes the scent.

Familiar, salty and cool.

In the far distance it can be seen, over the high cliffs of rocks- the sea.

The fishing village Erd came from is an odd one. One of the reasons he became a fisherman in the western seas though he hailed from the eastern south was the difference in temperament. Though the sea is itself one large body, areas differed, the southern sea was keen to storms and whirlpools, making it a hell to fish in if you weren’t… well, probably a mermaid.

Separating the land and the sea is a wall.

The legends differed, some say the gods built them, some day the founders of their village designed them, whoever created the large rock formations that shielded the village from the otherwise catastrophic waves that would have drowned then all had the wall not been there as a barrier- they’d been deftly strong.

The rock formation, the wall- is at least 60 metres high, hundreds of miles long, and shades a grand deal. Given the humid heat that is a blessing. The wall is shaped into many twists and turns, more calculated and formulated the closer it is to people. The wall submerges from the sea and ends on the land it curves upon. A giant cubby of water its centre, a “lake” is fished from and swam within. There are deposits all along the coast that people had built their homes in or around.

One such family is that of Erd’s. His sister has fashioned their inherited home into an inn of sorts for tourists. With Erd’s experience in the militia and his travels across the seas, he’s met a good deal of people so business is ensured.

The inn is made of a lacquered wood, bamboo, and some stone, held high upon the sands, it melds into the rock of the craggily wall. Each room within leads to a personal deposit of the sea, like some places would have a backyard flower garden. While Levi think Eren would have liked that as well, this must be all the better.

Erd’s sister has her assistant see to their horses, reminding the young boy to be careful, and to see they are put in stalls that will differentiate them from the horses of the other many guests residing here. These new guests are her brother’s comrades after all. She seems a rather hardworking, straight forward sort, perfect for her job as being the kind not easily ruffled, though given the circumstances she’s unusually anxious.

Introductions are given and she shows them to their room, a room at the farthest end, secluded from the rest. Levi can tell Erd must have told his sister some very specific details before their arrival, he’ll have to thank him later. He has to admit he’d not expected the inn to be so bustling with activity given it’s a rather hard to reach location.

You had to travel inland to reach it, not many familiar with the seas wanted to make such a visit as surely many of the guests here are, being Erd’s associates or encounters.

They’re told should they need anything to please call for her. There’s a pull bell system that’ll alert her or the other staff should they require anything.

Levi glances at it briefly and has to stop Eren from pulling on the red tie he’d been reaching for the moment he’d turned his back on him to give Erd’s sister the small but heavily packed bundle of gifts Erd could not send by pigeon or crow. Levi tries to also pay for their lodging, given the exerted effort that’d been placed in its preparation but Erd’s sister refuses the couple of gold coins, the highest form of currency in the kingdom. The Corporal had saved her brother’s life time and time again- there was no price to that. Happy for the package, she flips back some of her auburn hair that’s fallen over her shoulder, and smiling, gives a courteous bow before sliding their room’s door close.

They sort their luggage, storing away the clothes least likely to be used. All the while Levi can see Eren itching to go outside, every minute means more disarray to their unpacking as his hands tremble and his attention turns to the sliding doors leading out to the back. He’s worrying his knuckles with his teeth, they’re almost as red as the lip he’d been worrying before.

Finally-

Levi walks over and swiftly slides the backdoors open.

Instantly the full extent of the scent of the sea assaults them and Levi has barely gotten the words out that maybe a swim is in order when Eren has already peeled the airy but bulking desert garb from himself, kicking off what of the coils that might trip him, and not bothering to fold the clothes, but at least having the decency to kick them into a pile before he runs out along the dock. Naked aside the glistening green of his wedding band on his ring finger- Eren dives into the water head first.

Levi changes from the desert clothing into a robe provided by the inn, stepping out onto the dock just as Eren emerges back up from the water, a tremendous splash made, more joyous than any fish within.

“Shouldn’t you have checked the depth first? The temperature?” Levi asks, arms folded, frowning on what if the pool had been shallow.

Eren turns, smiles at him, half submerged, moving a lock of wet dark hair from his face.

The sun flickers across the water the shadow of the colossal rock does not overcast.

“I could tell from afar, the water is a bit cooler than I’d thought it would be. It’s nice. You should join me! Levi!”

Eren says that but he looks content either way, with or without Levi. He vanishes back under the water with a lighter splash and Levi sits at the end of the dock. He sticks his feet into the water. He could swim as well, join Eren, it’s not that he feared the water from what had happened, nor is he incapable. But in the case they’re called for dinner one of them shouldn’t be a seeping mess. Besides, he’s tired from the traveling and would prefer a real bath. A hot one too.

He’s content to watch over Eren, fretting when Eren doesn’t come up for air as often as he deems it reasonable. He’s about to dive in when it seems Eren hadn’t come up for too long a time, but Eren does return to the surface. Hurling water all over Levi who’s glowering for the previous reason. Eren apologises. Tells him of the colourful fish and plantlife below in the pool that Levi warns him not to eat.

There’s fish to be eaten but it’ll be in the dining room. The fish in the pool are to remain in the pool. Eren scowls, as he insists he knew that though Levi highly doubts it.

He wants Eren to come up for air more often. Eren can hold his breath deftly well, but Levi is worried he’ll forget himself and think he can breathe under water… though Hanji had assured him hundreds of times enough already before they’d set out that despite Eren not being fully human, he cannot shift back into the form he once was without some genetic trigger… the scent of the sea, its familiarity and all the notions of what he once was that it brought- Levi is having second thoughts. Could it truly do nothing?

The sea is his enemy; Levi is a thief, a criminal unto it.

Returning to the scene of the crime- with the crime-

Eren is pouting when he sees Levi is not looking at the interesting rocks and bits of coral, many different coloured and patterned seashells he’s brought from the bottom just to show Levi since he’s too picky to come into the water himself. He tugs at Levi’s robe until that attention is merited. With some annoyance, Eren finally has it. But Levi is not paying so much attention to what Eren has brought but Eren himself.

Seeing him half submerged from the water again, his swimming skills unrivaled to any great swimmers among the people of even this fishing island, it is almost like he is a merperson again. Should Eren not rise high enough from the water that Levi can see below the bones of his hips it’s almost like he’d never lost his tail to begin with. That is how natural Eren looks in the water, and how natural he acts within it.

Of course.

Levi is considering entering the water, given how cool it is, for the time being to mull on this issue a little longer and to berid himself of an issue of his own, when Eren has already deemed it fit for him to see to it.

He’s parted the folds of Levi’s robe, settling himself between Levi’s legs, his damp fingers nestling on his thighs before trailing forth to grip his erect cock. Levi’s been hard for some time now, though it’d not been the reason Eren had asked him to join him in the water to begin with, joining with Eren would surely solve the problem.

“Even though you said you’re tired,” Eren is telling him. Levi wants to pinch his cheek for his chiding tone. His eyes speak none of it, the mischief there merits the need of another pinch. Eren receives neither, as the tip of Levi’s cock bumps to either side of Eren’s cheeks as he slides it in and out of his mouth. Coaxing it down his throat with some difficulty from the unusual angle.

Levi curls his fingers into Eren’s damp hair, watching each drop of water that falls from the lashes of Eren’s eyelids, how further furrowed his brow becomes as he concentrates on sucking harder, or gentler, occasionally flicking that closed or downcast gaze up to gauge Levi’s reaction. Levi feels Eren shudder between his legs and beneath the palm of his hand when he cups the back of his neck, sliding it down a little to near the tops of his shoulders.

How many times… it had to have been that Levi imagined such a scene? Eren half merged from the sea, being from the sea, with his dark hair in Levi’s fingers and his mouth around Levi’s cock? Countless times, even when they’d parted and Eren waited for him in that sheltered bay, did Levi toss about in his bed blaming the unusual heat even when summer could no longer be blamed. Many a time did he muse over and dream of Eren’s mouth and his hands and his skin and scales, thinking only in the dead of the night when day could not make his thoughts all the more real, what if he somehow snuck Eren in to the mansion? What if he kept him in one of the rooms, in a bath tub full of water, what if he kept him there on half promises, and half truths and lies (like he does now and still) what if he told Eren it would only be for a little while- he imagined that. Eren in a darkened room, resting in a tub full of water Levi would make sure would be salt, Levi could care for him in this room, keep him, kiss him, have him-

But it was an impossible ambition he could not bring himself to put into motion. Eren had saved his life. To steal his in such an unseemly manner- would throw away that of the humanity he still harbored. Though Eren was not human- maybe from the start, because Levi was less a human than he’d been before the war- maybe because of that Levi had been able to sense that despite that Eren is a monster- he has humanity as well.

Levi muses, do half people, together, make one whole person?

Does half even remain?

Levi pulls at Eren’s hair, grunting when Eren’s teeth catch, and he can tell Eren wants to apologise. So Eren does, by being softer around him, sucking more gently, his hands gripping the base, the tips of his finger caressing his balls. Levi wraps his legs around Eren’s torso to draw him closer, the heels of his feet digging into the small of Eren’s back. Clutching Eren to himself, and the rocks beneath the dock, and for a moment Levi forgets. That it’s not hardened scale that is beneath the water, but skin.

After he comes, Eren slips away from him, into the water, to avoid hearing Levi telling him to spit his cum out, he gulps it as he should have a breath of air. Emerging from the water, he climbs up the steps by the dock. A slight limp to where he’d skinned his knee because of Levi’s faltered memory.

Levi ushers him over. Licking at the wound despite Eren’s startled protest. Eren relents as Levi holds his hips and sucks not only blood from him, but taking his cock in his mouth, sucks him off. Eren’s look absolutely chiding this time, when Levi doesn’t spit out his cum either. It’s salty, like his skin.

Levi has to remind Eren after they wash up to put on a robe before they go down to dinner. Such is the heat.

They reach the dining room at a later hour, when less people are around. The dishes are fish you catch from the flowing open tubes made of bamboo that are built all through the half open room. The sea is present here as well. You grill or bake your catch outside on the available fires, along with the seasonings and vegetables and fruit provided. Or if you rather, other tubes contained cold wheat noodles you could eat and dip in sauces. They have both and the fire pits remind Eren of their time in the mountains.

Levi agrees it is familiar, the stars look the same here as well.

\--

A week passes before they depart. Garbed in their usual attire, shirt sleeves rolled up but mantles packed away. Levi insists on wearing the sun hats Erd’s sister gifts them. She also gifts them dried fish and fruit for her brother, and some for themselves. Though the woods (jungle) they’re about to travel through if they continue along the path back west, will be plentiful this time of year with fruit. She warns them of what is good to eat, and what might make you sick.

The woods are much more colourful here, and more abundant in animals that reflect what they eat. Bright green and yellow melons, pink red and purple berries, fruits of all shapes and sizes and brightness, flowers likewise, blue, purple, red, orange, pink, yellow, and green all seem to be in of same amount, unlike the dark green woods they’re used to. The prey is odder, and less filling given their small stature. They’d eaten some lizards in the desert, Nanaba had shown them but the lizards in these woods are much different. They stick to fruit along most of the journey back west.

The woods’ vibrancy and the heat abating the closer they travel back home, summer waning at last. The cool of autumn is welcomed almost as much as the red and orange of trees that had been green and only green.

But still this is an unfamiliar place.

The sea is far, but not as far as it could be, craggily rock, but deep red as the blood of man, loose as ocean sand is what they ride through, carefully. The hooves of their horses turn red, and the mantles they’d donned at the slight catch of colder air is bitten away, as a steamy heat rises from this red earth.

The scent is a tepid saltiness that Eren scrunches his nose at.

This place is-

“…Ms Hanji… she hadn’t been… lying to me?!”

Levi looks over to Eren, glad they’re arriving as night falls, it makes the stuffy heat of the hot spring village less stifling.

“While I’m sure she’d exaggerated some of the details, given the last time we’d been here her glasses had fogged up so much she’d had to take ‘em off. Ha, shitty glasses without her glasses.”

Hanji hadn’t been able to see to infer the finer details of the hot spring village; she really did need her glasses to see. And it’d been difficult for her to develop another pair that didn’t fogged up in this environment when she couldn’t see in it. But she’d made one nonetheless, unfortunately it was completed near the end of their visit…

“Most of what she’d said is the truth. The earth is red-”

“-and the water boils so hot despite not coming from the depths of a geyser. Amazing. I can’t believe it.”

“…you’ll see it with your own eyes soon enough. The truth can’t be escaped that way. Isn’t that such your case?”

Eren’s brief laugh is light.

He’d journeyed to the surface to confirm with his own eyes, such what be the truth.

“That’s true sir.”

Eren almost jumps when Levi spurs his horse ahead suddenly, as the path straightens and widens out, thinking he’s in trouble for that sir. He’s surprised at what Levi has to say, glancing back to Eren-

“You damn brat. Let’s race.”

\--

The inn keeper of the hot springs village is much less accommodating and gracious than Erd’s sister had been (but they had been rather obnoxious on arrival, arguing on who had won- Eren would not have fought so much if Levi hadn’t been insisting he’d won when he hadn’t! it’s in truth banter more aggressive than usual but still not actual argument), the inn keeper too had been informed of their arrival. This inn doesn’t get many customers until later autumn or winter, so it appears Levi and Eren be nearly the only ones. All the better. Eren’s observations and reactions are a little over the top even to his usual amazement of the human world. He’s louder than usual, and pulling Levi around with him more readily than Levi would have liked, and would have preferred in a manner he’d rather Eren done in the cramped markets of the capitol where it’d been more likely to be separated. Eren had wanted to visit here badly, especially after Hanji had said if he didn’t cook in the water! Then he could surely cook something in the water. His joy is tremendous, and when his voice cracks from overuse. Levi annoyed, insists they return to their room for the time being.

Between the heated lemon water or the thick almond drink, chilled water and cow’s milk could be had. Levi has Eren drink both the chilled water and the hot one, despite complaints to a possible sore belly.

When Eren’s throat is feeling better and his voice restored, Levi jokes it’s time they be cooked in these damn hot springs. Eren alarmed he might be serious, Levi sighs.

“A joke,” he tells Eren as they enter the hot springs, robes folded neatly, a different style and of darker colours than the light white cotton ones of Erd’s fishing village. They’re a dark blue, so they cannot be lost amongst the red earth they hang away upon the branches of the many trees that litter throughout the hot springs.

The flowers that bloom from them are light pink, if the trees had grown elsewhere the petals would be white, but since the earth is red- the flowers blossom pink. That is what Hanji had told them, and confirmed with the people of this village, if it is for fact or a well believed lie, it matters not. It is the only sweet fragrance to be had in the thick heat of the steam. They breathe it in heavily as they kiss, Eren’s hands cupping the back of his head as Levi pulls Eren onto his lap.

Though the heat of the water merits they have no need of warmth, to the sweltering heat of their tent in the mountain, and the heat of the sun through the desert, all had been nothing to the heat of the springs and Eren, as Levi enters him, marvels on how he can even comprehend Eren’s heat in these waters.

When they are done, Levi also marvels at how Eren can still walk. He’s dizzy so it’s Eren that brings him the ice cold milk, and they both drink of it, seated back in the waters, clinking the glass bottles.

When Eren rises again.

“Going for more?”

“Only if you would like some more, I’m going to see what lies beyond that ledge.”

“Don’t bother. Don’t go far.”

“Understood. I’ve left a towel for you on the bench where the robes are. Don’t stay in too long.”

“Then don’t be gone long.”

Eren pulls on his robe.

He returns quickly to Levi with another bottle of milk before going off to explore on his own.

Levi would have gone with him, but between their travels and their increased activity, his age is starting to get to him perhaps? He downs the milk, if there was a smile on his lips no one would know. There’s no one else here right now anyway. He glances over the steaming waters, the flower petals that float across it and scatter over the ground. Looking to where Eren’s footprints trail, around the craggily rocks, to a path where there’s only trees and the hints of trailing steam. Lower, to some place cooler.

The sky as dark as their robes.

The stars here more akin to those you can see in the capitol.

If Hanji were here she’d describe why that is. She’s explained it before, but between that and the hundreds of other explanations she could give for near everything, Levi hadn’t bothered to remember. He wishes he had, only because Eren would have wanted to know.

Eren would want to know everything.

It’s why he’d come to the surface.

\--

It is not why they had come to the surface.

Eren stops in disbelief.

He’d been taking a walk, looking over the trees, wondering if this sort of flower could bloom in one of Mr Erwin’s orchards or perhaps even on Hanji’s island.

When he’d heard them.

A few wary steps and a voice he did not think he’d hear ever again.

“Eren?”

Armin’s voice.

Eren had turned from where he’d been looking upon one of the many blossomed trees to see Armin, garbed in light blue tunic, a dark blue jacket and boots, some too big for him, looking at him. Standing.

On two feet?

Legs…

As they stare at one another in disbelief-

Another voice Eren thought he’d never hear again-

“Eren. Eren-  _EREN!_ ”

Mikasa’s voice.

Garbed in a similar outfit, all black, save for her red boots. Made redder by the earth, standing as well, more sturdily on her stronger legs, and feet that pound every step into the earth as she runs, and Armin runs, to him, their voices crying out and rising in the notes of song as they fold him to them, tears in all their eyes. Eren’s voice warbles at first but grows strong as it joins with theirs.

A different song of reunion.

Ending as they brush each other’s tears away.

“Well met,” Armin says, as Eren holds one of his hands and one of Mikasa’s as well as they hobble back from their clutching embrace. Flower petals scatter about their hair and shoulders as a breeze picks up and falters. Carrying their voices ever slightly through the wind.

“How?” Eren is asking marveling upon them, looking upon their faces, might he be dreaming? Did he pass out from the heat? Was it not Levi that’d tired but he?

“How is it that you are all here?”

Armin’s smile is slight, and Mikasa is swallowing the lump in her throat, wishing to press her head to Eren’s shoulder but not wanting to turn her gaze from his face. Armin tells their tale. What had happened in the Superior Sea after he’d left. The arrests. His parents missing. How Reiner and Bertholdt had gone past the barrier to look for him. How they must have found his father’s office, and the light within, how they knew about the serum, and how they had been humans before, about how they got on land. Their transformation. Mikasa had pulled him and Connie through the barrier. They’d swam a long time, before a storm caused them to be separated from Connie.

They’d looked for him, but finally decided he might have gone to shore, given how close it’d been. They eaten the serum and turned into humans. Armin… it’d taken some time for him to learn how to use his legs, but because Mikasa had been so strong, and had had so many legs as a merperson she had no problems. It was as if all the strength in her tentacles had combined to give her these extremely strong pair of legs. She’d carried Armin onto land and after they’d warily observed the people of the village they’d found, they’d decided to meld in with them so-

“You stole? You stole the clothes?”

Mikasa looks a little abashed, but only because it’s Eren scolding her, if it’d been anyone else she’d been completely unrepentant.

“We had no choice. Humans wear another skin. If we wanted to try to find you, we couldn’t let them know what we really are.”

If they were found out they might be killed.

Eren nods, Levi had had such worries. It was why he didn’t like it very much when Eren interacted with people, and when he did he preferred him covered.

They’d not made much progress. They’d stayed in this town since they’d come upon the shore, the human world was far more vast than they’d imagine. Much larger than their Superior Sea. They’d learned from the gossip and rumours of the locals that a mermaid had been found, it was all the talk of the capitol, the people of the village said- a mermaid had been found- perhaps by the scientist Hanji, or captured by the militia. Some fishers deemed it folly, but those who’d done business in the capitol and its neighboring suburb knew of the rumour well. What is a rumour if there is no basis of truth? With that in mind many who lived upon the docks looked out for them, these mermaids. Another rumour went about mermaids had been found and caught in the town north of them as well.

They’d wanted to head to this town north, then the capitol too but then they’d heard another rumor. About how that person in the militia who’d caught the mermaid, was going to be coming to this town, along with his bride.

They didn’t expect for Eren to be coming along too.

“How lucky we are. Eren, you must have discovered your father’s basement too right? And the truth about us, that was why you left the barrier right? You were always agreeing with me, that humans are so interesting- no wonder we found them interesting, nothing intrigues an individual more than their own.”

Armin has placed a hand upon Eren’s shoulder, a look of relief on his face. They have journeyed far and have found what they sought. With that in order-

Mikasa is tugging on his hand.

“Let us not doddle here any longer. Let us go home Eren.”

The Superior Sea.

He could go with them now.

Armin pulls away and starts walking and Mikasa tugs Eren a few steps forward, her hand still in his, however-

Eren twists his hand from hers. She looks back, expecting as such, Eren never liked it when she took the lead and dragged him along, though she did it often.

He holds that hand against his breast.

It is then Armin notices upon it-

Eren speaks up.

“Sorry. You two. I can’t return.”

Mikasa turns back to walk over, stopping before Eren, head leaning towards him intimately. Intimidating.

“What do you mean by that Eren? Did you not save your scales? Do not worry, I’ve brought some along. You can change back. Let’s go.”

Eren shakes his head, his brow furrowed, his mouth frowning.

“That’s not it… I have… one of my scales.”

He touches at the ring on his finger.

What Armin had noticed.

Mikasa looks impressed, not only did Eren save one of his scales but he even turned it into something else. For the sake of disguise? But Armin knows better, he’s read of humans, and their customs, that ring-

“It can’t be…” Armin is saying and Mikasa turns to address his tone, seeing Armin’s stricken face- confusion grips hers as apprehension and Eren’s explanation comes next.

“I cannot return with you to the sea. I am promised and bound to someone on the surface. I cannot be… where they are not.”

Mikasa’s pain is evident.

She turns back to Eren.

Aside that perhaps she once thought one day her and Eren would be bound, as many of their colony thought. The most painful fact of the matter, is Eren- will not return with them. If Eren did not live within the sea, she would never see him again. That was- that is-

“Eren. What are you saying? How can you… not want to go home?”

A home he had granted her.

If he is not there then-

Eren’s expression turns ever resolute, that hand over the one with the wedding band on it, gripping.

“My home is here now. It is wherever Mr Levi is.”

Mikasa is still as stone, and then quick like match to kindling-

“What about your parents? The colony? Our family? How can you abandon them for this stranger, this outsider,  _this human_ -”

Eren draws back, a few steps taken, as his hands ball into fists aside him and he thumps one over his breast, the ring glistening from faded starlight, voice rising-

“What are  _you_  saying Mikasa? Levi is bound to me and I to him, he is my family just as much as you are and as he is my family he is  _yours as well_. I cannot abandon one of you without abandoning another. Forgive me, Mikasa but- the choice I must make right now- please understand it.”

“I don’t! I don’t understand at all  _Eren_ -”

Armin places a hand at Mikasa’s wrist. She too had drawn back and balled her hands into fists. Such are they quick to mirror the other’s actions and quick to temper. Armin has known them for this and all his life.

“Calm down, Mikasa. Eren too. Let’s talk this over.”

They both look over to Armin, awaiting what he has to say to resolve all this. Fix this. It calms them, takes the edge off the heat. His words, his desire to see this through by not instinct alone.

But what words he might have said, do not come.

Instead,

“Go on, tell me. What’s the situation here, you brats?”

Eren turns and sees walking towards them, in measured and careful steps, almost as heavy as Mikasa’s steps had been is-

“Levi!”

Levi looks to Eren as he says his name and stepping to stand aside him, Eren clears his throat, voice breathy and nervous as he introduces them to one another. Levi’s hand clasped over Eren’s shoulder as Eren speaks, the ring on Levi’s hand ever apparent since Eren possesses one as well.

“Armin. Mikasa. This is the person I am bound to-”

Before Eren can continue, Armin interrupts as he puts the rumors together, the reason for their staying in this village, finishing Eren’s sentence not in the manner Eren might have chose-

“-Corporal Levi of the royal militia to Queen Historia Reiss the first of her name, the goddess of victory and all cattlemen, mother to orphans, the priestess of certainty… the founder of this new world.”

\--

It is bold sunlight that seeps in throughout the leaf scattered path of these shaded woods as Sasha urges her horse onward, her ponytail swishing with every gallop.

Well, not her horse, it is Ms Krista’s horse, the one she rode into battle. Giant and strong, a black warhorse that she doesn’t often get painted in pictures with. In these peaceful times she rides a slim white horse that the people prefer to see one of her small frame and beautiful features upon, a  lady of grace and kindness, who has brought them love and peace.

But the price for that has been blood.

While it is sword and shield that had been stained by it, it is through Historia’s hands they had been guided to action, and wished.

Krista loves this horse, it is strong and reliable. And braves every battle with her.

She has let Sasha borrow it for her journey.

Before Krista departed to attend the wedding of Corporal Levi she had summoned Sasha into her quarters. She’d figured out by Sasha’s strange behavior that she’d been planning returning to her old village, to make peace, to give her offerings, to investigate. Sasha didn’t think Historia would approve but it’s quite the contrary. She’s given royal permission to return to the ruins of her village, along with the mission to investigate the coast while the Queen and her Knight are out. Historia wants to find out if there are any other possible beings from the sea making their way to the coast, why, and what the fallen church might have to do with them, what the atrocities of their passed kin might have done that is being called to retribution now in their era.

She’d written her a letter of royal purpose, given her a bag of gold to help with her spendings, along with a bag of bread that Sasha thought would last a lot longer than it had.

And her horse.

It was Krista’s way of making Sasha promise she would come back safely, or at the very least alive. This horse even if she is torn and battered, has the strength to carry her through it all!

But Sasha is rather strong anyway, so it shouldn’t come to that.

Aside from the sword and armor that marks her as a knight, Sasha has brought along her trusty bow, the one her father had given to her even when she’d been so foolish. Wanting to dash out and be some kind of hero, she’d been so angry when she’d heard someone from the church had ran out on them. It was an honour to serve the gods wasn’t it? She hadn’t understood, she hadn’t understood anything- but still her father had entrusted his bow to her, because he’d wanted her to be safe. Like how Krista is entrusting her horse to her…

Up high above her, “Pan”- her hawk is flying. For some reason he didn’t get along with Ymir, or rather Ymir didn’t get along much with Pan. Maybe because they were too akin? Ymir is a prickly sort.

Pan flies, following the path of the light breeze and Sasha. A fair hawk for hunting, but able to fly a great distance. In case of emergency Sasha will need to rely on Pan to send a message to Historia.

She’d also brought Pan to help her hunt, but because of her mission to scout the nearby towns and villages first, she takes the well traveled path and the game is meager. Since Queen Historia came to rule she’d abolished the custom that only the aristocracy could hunt in the woods. The woods are for everyone to take from, so long as you didn’t take more than your share.

Sasha’s stomach grumbles. She’s just barely made it to the outskirts of the capitol’s suburb and she’d already depleted most of the bread given to her. She’d brought her own food along as well but she wanted to save the preserved stuff for if she got into pinch, or if the seasons past quickly and for the worse and snow fell… it’s summer still so she has time quite a bit before that… and wouldn’t it be best if this was all resolved before snow even thought of falling? Oh, but she was thinking about it quite a bit now… she dislikes winter- because there’s scarce any food!

Least, when she’d been growing up that’s how it’d been …

She’s drawn a cloak over her armor as she enters the town, hoping she won’t draw too much attention to herself, there’s many travelers of all sorts during this season. She wouldn’t look so unusual compared to some. Especially those who traveled from far away islands across the western sea.

Sasha investigates along the ports first, sucking back her drool at any food stalls she comes across. Raw fish would curb her appetite she convinces herself, and it’s the sea she needs to know about. But even the raw fish in the fish stalls, the clams, oysters, and shellfish- her stomach grumbles louder.

Sasha persists, she needs to check this place out before just hurrying along and filling her gut! She is a knight now! She need act like one…

Some fishermen are taking their noon meal together, grilling some catch they’ve exchanged over a grill. Sasha looks longingly over them as she passes by, inhaling deeply- when loud cries rise up from a ship, five docks ahead.

A grand deal of people are clamored about there. The lunching fishermen chuckle to themselves.

“Think they found one this time?”

“Seems everyone is nowadays.”

“Sure like that sea cow was a mermaid?”

“Talking bout yer mum?”

“Stuff it.”

“They really did find one, wassit their names? Obtained quite a fortune then fucked off to some western islands of paradise!”

A chorus of laughter.

But hearing this conversation, Sasha urges her horse forward. Onto the docks to that ship that’s lifting in a seeping net, not only a ton of fish but also-

She sees him.

They all do.

A young boy with a tail that shimmers grey with touches of burgundy. He’s clutching the net with one hand, while the other is balled into a fist, as if something is in it- looking awfully scared. She would be too if she were in his situation.

People are catching his kin and hearing the cheers, the excited chatter of the fisherman on this ship on the fortune that could be made if that old man dressed all in black appeared- they are selling them, to some buyer, some noble man maybe? Who is paying a high price for their lives.

Why?

What is he doing with them?

Is it just one person?

Sasha knows, probably- it is as her Queen has feared-

Sasha rears her Queen’s horse back, “The Tower” some have called it. Stopping it, she stands upon its back to give her enough height to jump onto the deck. Tearing her cloak from her as she springs into the air and summersaults onto the deck, right before the net. The voices of the fishermen cease upon seeing her abrupt and unwelcome arrival.

A flash of silver and gold as Sasha draws her sword and holds it to the heavens, affixing the seal of the royal crest from her gauntleted hand to the left breast of her armor.

“Heed me! I am Sasha Blouse, second Knight to Her Majesty the Queen Historia Reiss, the first of her name! The Goddess of Victory! I order you, on her behalf, to hand over this person to me!”

“Person?” someone who might be the captain of this ship asks.

More laughter. Some think her silly though many balk in amazement at the crest.

“What are you saying Miss Knight? That isn’t a person! It’s a mermaid! Well, merboy in this case. Isn’t the game in the woods and the fish in the sea for the people? Didn’t the Queen so decree that?”

Sasha bristles up, it is true Historia had given up the best resources to the masses but-

“She did. You look like you and your men have benefited quite well from it. You have so many other fish in these nets. Allow me, no- allow  _Your Queen_  the one.”

“Ah, but it’s the best fish isn’t it? You can take all the rest to Her Highness but this one is staying-”

Sasha can stand for this impudence no longer.

While it is many to one, and a younger her might have balked (and cried a little) at the prospect of fighting so many (on an empty stomach no doubt!) they are fishermen, while some are surely more proficient in the means of battle, none could be more so than she, she is a knight now- her duty! Her mission! Her Queen! Take priority! She points her sword at the captain.

“How rude! And do you not think your Queen,  _Her Majesty_  who liberated you from the desolation of the Old King and the corrupted church, deserves the greatest fish of them all? Or do you not love your Queen sir?”

While there are many people in this world, in this kingdom, who have differing opinions, the mass opinion of the people held the same.

It stood true in this world so full of lies.

Everyone loves Queen Historia.

The chatter on the ship changes, the temperament as well. Of course they would give the mermaid to the Queen, it’s what she wants isn’t it? Of course they must give to their Queen what she wants, she who has given them so much-

“Long Live the Queen! Long Live the Queen Historia!”

The cry rises and grows louder, unrelenting.

The captain is looking nervous, sweating, as he sees Sasha has won.

He nods and Sasha nods back, unable to keep her beaming smile from her face, she turns around to cut the netting… as the fish fall and so does the merboy… he’s swallowing something down. Almost choking. All the fish seeps out from the net and as the merboy does as well-

A pair of human legs she sees.

Huh?

\--

His name is Connie. Connie Springer.

He tells her on the road.

The whole ship crew had started laughing their asses off, some rolling on the deck as they all hollered at their own foolishness. How much they’d wanted to catch a mermaid they’d fooled themselves into thinking some half drown, scrawny adolescent had been one! Of course looking at him, he could be no such thing! They’d laughed to tears, some slapping the other on the back, those who would have sworn a tail had been there, just as Sasha had, she’d gone to look over the railing, as if the tail had been thrown into the sea, but that had only given substance to the idea that the boy- Connie had been wearing a disguise. Playing dress up, a prank, and that was where the tail had gone, thrown into the sea now that the trouble had been done. They aren’t without humor are they? This lot. They give a bunch of fish to Sasha to make up for the fake mermaid, along with the fake mermaid.

But she isn’t sure, rather she doesn’t want to convince herself, like those who’d held their tongues were trying so they may better get along with their peers- that Connie had not been a merperson.

For one he doesn’t know how to walk. She has to teach him that along with how to put on clothes (she lends him a dark brown tunic, some leggings, boots and some lighter pieces of armor made of leather and little steel unlike the full suit she’s wearing) and he does eat the fish they’d been given raw.

He’s a fast learner, perhaps he was just an amnesiac? He’s quiet the first week of their journey together, so she takes him for a mute. Sasha scourges the town for information, learning an old man that wore black robes, perhaps a used to be priest- has been purchasing these so called “mermaids” people have been finding, and heading east… into the woods… that was where Dauper Village had resided, her village…

She’d been planning to head further south but with this news she must go home immediately.

Her old home.

She tells Connie what she’s going to do and it isn’t until they’re out of the bustling town, on the road that he seems more comfortable.

And talkative.

His manner of speech carries an accent and nuance of the old, some of which she’d spoken being from a tribe that had been cut off from the city, isolating themselves in their ways and beliefs. Some of its manner is rougher than the usual politeness this old sort of speaking carries and Sasha bites her lip every now and then at it.

It is true, she had not been wrong he tells her. He is a merperson.

He had come to the surface with some other friends of his to save the friends that had come to the surface before them, so far anyone who had made it here had not made their way back to their home in the sea.

They wanted to find out why that was…

“Eren was the first to go, he’d always been curious about if humans existed or not. Then Reiner and Bertholdt went after him, they said they were going to bring Eren back, but I think they were curious too. And then Mikasa and Armin wanted to go to save Eren- and I tagged along… because I wanted to know too… ya know? I don’t like being excluded, and it seems like such a waste to spend the rest of my life wondering just because I was scared…”

“Why did you all wonder about us so?” Sasha asks, as she slows The Tower down, to a steady walk, the path thinning as they go deeper into the woods.

Connie hesitates, thinks, then settles- “If a mermaid had never made it upon these shores, and you were granted the ability, just for a day even- wouldn’t you want to see for yourself if mermaids exist in the sea?”

She would.

It was why she had bent the knee to Ms Krista… to the Queen Historia.

To marvel, to learn, to experience a world unlike the one she’d known.

Though there are many things from her world that she loved, cherished, and could never be taken from her, times change, people change- and for their survival the world must grow bigger.

The world around them, and the world within them.

Sasha nods to him.

“It’d be interesting! I think I would.”

Connie smiles at her as she smiles at him.

Sasha thinks about the names… Connie had said… one of them... some of them? Had been familiar but which one… and where had she heard it (seen it) before-

Her stomach gives a large grumble.

“Ah! Sorry, it’s been a while since we last ate hasn’t it?”

Connie looks at her nervously, “A-are you sure? The light hasn’t changed at all… doesn’t that determine it?”

Sasha breaks out some bread, cheese and apples.

“Not at all!”

“Shouldn’t we stop the horse then?”

Sasha says something about there being no need, but Connie doesn’t really understand through the food already in her mouth.

\--

Deeper into the woods.

They should be closer now.

Sasha insists on Connie taking the bed mat, since s-s-she could sleep on the ground! She’s done it lots of times before! Or even in a tree, on hunting trips… though it’s been a while.

They’re a bit sore and sweaty, she was teaching him some hand to hand combat moves, which he’s pretty good at, fair with a knife too. He’s awfully quick, and a quick learner too! The sword is too cumbersome to him, as is the bow. But in the worst case she thinks if he needs to defend himself he’ll be either fine, or able to make a quick getaway.

She’s made The Tower her pillow though he isn’t a pleasant one. She settles on some grass at the trunk of a tree, figuring it’d be best to sleep upright if Connie is plopped flat on the ground… like he isn’t sure if that’s how it works but he did sleep in a bed before when they’d been staying at an inn… quite a bit of her funding had been sapped for that since Historia hadn’t expected her to pick up a mermaid surely…

She’s lightly sleeping, maybe a few hours. Pan is probably off hunting in the woods now. She’s dreaming of bread, the butter slathered on thick and melted, with some honey or raspberry jam when she hears them.

A wolf? A deer? No.

Made by a person.

If they’d made a fire this would have been more apparent, animals wouldn’t have approached from the smoke. Typically those who do approach fire would be a fellow person. The fact this person is trying to step lightly, means they know Sasha and Connie do not want to be detected- it’s highly possible-

This is the enemy.

Without opening her eyes Sasha rolls back onto her feet, opening them as she’s about to draw her sword.

She’s a second too late, as she sees a small silver pistol being pressed to Connie’s brow as he grabs harshly at the arm around his neck, ready to squirm and fight his way out of the hold when Sasha calls to him-

“Connie! Don’t move! Be still! That thing at your head is dangerous!”

Connie stills and looks over to Sasha, eyes clearly saying alright you’ll have to do something then.

Sasha grits her teeth, she shouldn’t have let her guard down to this extent, but because these woods are familiar to her she’d…

Now is not the time to panic!

She does not draw her sword, but she does not remove the hand from the hilt.

“You! Who are you? State your name and manner of business! I am Sasha Blouse! The second knight to-“

“I know, I know. You’re the second knight to Her Majesty, Queen Historia.”

The captor finishes as she flips back her hood. White silver hair with a hatched pin, a pair of spectacles. She looks bored, annoyed, but down to business.

“Excuse me for my rudeness. I had not seen with my own eyes that it indeed had been Queen Historia’s second knight to have taken the fake mermaid, you hid your armor well enough but that sword and that emblem makes no mistake.”

Sasha tries to place where she’s seen this person before. It must be obvious her attempts at remembering are failing from her squinting.

The person sighs.

She unhands Connie, saying a quick but unfeeling sorry. As he puts distance between he and her, backing to the tree Sasha is still kneeling on the ready at.

“I am Riko Brzenska. I’m from the garrison. The royal guard? I was given orders by General Dot Pixis to investigate the rumors of these mermaids. You’ve known of his interest before. Surely those people from the militia told you. Well, Her Majesty at least. We know she’s concerned over them as well, we didn’t know to what extent so General Pixis sent me out on this assignment.”

Riko draws back some of her cloak to reveal the emblem on the breast of her tunic.

“Do you understand Lady Blouse? We are on the same side.”

Sasha is about to say something when Connie interrupts.

“W-w-w-hoa! Hey! Hey! There! I know I don’t understand all that’s going on, but if we’re on the same side why did  _you_  attack  _us_  that seems… sort of fishy to me!”

Connie glances over to Sasha and gives a wink.

Sasha bites her lip to hold back laughter.

Riko looks like she’s regretting interacting with them at all.

“I hadn’t been sure at first. And if Lady Blouse had not indeed been the second knight of our Queen as people were yammering about, and people do love to talk, and not always speak the truth but rather what is just interesting. I would have had to capture the fake mermaid from whatever opposition I would have been facing. You being as everyone said you to be, is most convenient.”

Though her face is saying otherwise.

Sasha rises to her feet, and holds a hand out to Riko who puts away the pistol, and strides over.

They shake hands.

“Alright Ms Riko! You can tag along with us!”

\--

Riko has her own horse though she’d left it a ways back to lessen detection of herself, she had found them by chance she admits. She’d tried to trail them but it’d been rather difficult, these woods are unfamiliar to her, she works in the capitol and had been from a southern port town, where the woods nearby had been a jungle of tropics best left for the adventurous and well informed of poison.

Though she’d heard it was less dangerous than it was spoken of, she’d moved to become a soldier because she’d preferred the cool of the northern lands where the capitol resided, though after moving there wasn’t so vast a difference. It wasn’t like she was from the town by the southeastern sea where it was hot all the time.

They travel together, though slowly, to make it easier Sasha has led them on the “path” through the woods that horses can traverse, only those of her village know it and the few merchants they allowed in.

When they arrive to her village-

It is a barren wasteland.

Sasha lays down the flowers, and a loaf of bread she’s been saving as an offering to where her old house was. Apologises there isn’t some for everyone and clasps her hands in an old prayer though the gods are dead.

Burnt out and laid black and dark. What had been houses. The land they’d lived upon. Desolated. The damage extends across into the fields. This place where Dauper Village originally had been. All the stubborn and scheming who had remained had died here. All those who did not resist Queen Historia’s rule had relocated to a different place to live since their reckoning had come. Commander Erwin and his comrades had went to that relocation site to assure those who remained, survived, that their new home here would not be as their old home. And the sins of their relatives who only wished for rebellion would not be past to them. So long as they were peaceful.

In the end the majority of them did not wish for peace.

What the people of the “The Great Valley” to the mountain tribe, call “The Great Valley”, this is it. This is the aftermath of the catastrophic power of the weapons Ms Hanji had created and had been wielded by Humanity’s Strongest. While he alone is a soldier worth 100 men some say, Sasha thinks combined with the technology that only the militia could wield, that power became even more. Such power, was it even human anymore? Monstrous it is, but people had created such a power- so it was by the power of humans that humans are killed.

Probably even without such weapons that man, Corporal Levi would have been able to emerge victorious… Corporal Levi… he didn’t have a surname before getting married did he? He’s Corporal Levi Yeager now- Queen Historia had mentioned, Corporal Levi was to wed a person named Yeager- Eren Yeager-

“That’s it!” Sasha exclaims aloud.

A few birds take flight and Pan swoops down to rest on her shoulder.

She swivels over to Connie and clasps his shoulders.

“I got it Connie! I know where your friend is! Ah! Least one of them! That Eren!”

“You do?” Connie is asking and Riko’s look of comprehension has her take the hand she’d been holding at her chin in thought, while looking over the desecration of Dauper Village, from her face.

Sasha nods.

“I know exactly where we should go from here! The wedding took place at-”

Sasha feels it a couple seconds after Connie does. His face turns ever alert, as he turns his head, toward the east, past the valley, where the woods spread up into a crescent. A dark path. Smoke has started to rise there.

Had there been anyone living here still, it’d be smoke only the people of Dauper Village could see and understand exactly how horrendous a fire… it had to be to make that sort of smoke.

But the smoke is pure, steam, and if not for the sudden, slight rumbling through the earth that even now Riko can pick up on, neither merperson nor the descent of werepeople- it would have gone undetected.

It is dangerous over there.

Even so, they must find out what is going on. What is making them feel this inevitable calamity.

Sasha and Connie ride together on the The Tower. Pan flying low as Sasha bids, alongside them. Riko tailing behind them closely.

As they draw nearer to the source of this feeling, this dread that cries to them run away, get away, stay away, so much like the barrier within the Superior Sea that Connie wipes away tears on his cheek that he blinks from his eyes- Sasha’s mouth opens in a silent wail, a soft whimper escaping as they dart through the trees and along the ridge- seeing off from a cliff into the depth of the darkness- moving figures- hundreds of them steaming, thousands of them rolled into the other, dark masses much like the monster Eren and Levi had fought against in the forbidden woods near the start of the high mountains.

Only now it is not one singular being but many, and many of the same stature.

An army.

Riko’s hand is shaking as she draws a hand into the pocket of her coat, drawing her pistol out. If they must fight-

“No!” Sasha whispers maybe a little too loudly, continuing-

“Now is not the time for boldness! Duty requires all forms of bravery!”

Sasha kicks The Tower into a gallop. Riko follows suit again, the pistol still in her hand.

Connie grits his teeth, looking at Sasha as he clutches onto her tightly. Sasha looks, looks, looks at the abyss below her, taking in as much details as she can before the instinct to get away becomes too much to bear and riding down the length of the cliff’s ledge she turns around, retreating into the woods.

Connie asks, surprised though glad to leave.

“We’re running? But doesn’t your duty require bravery?”

Sasha is gritting her teeth as well, Connie’s tears have already fallen but her own have not.

“That’s right! But not all bravery takes the same form. That is what Ms Krista might say! I must- we must survive this! We must not get caught!”

As she speaks Sasha has drawn out ink and paper and praying it’s a scribble legible to the very least for Historia, she also prays the ink has dried enough, that when she folds the message over and attaches it to Pan’s leg- it won’t smear. Pan takes off, faster than their urged horses. Pitching himself straight into the air and diving forth for greater speed. Sasha says a prayer for him too. It’s funny isn’t it, she’d wanted to live and see a bigger world but here she was cowering in the old…

They cannot stay.

If they stay they will die.

“Where are we going?”

Riko asks her, quietly, they allow not their voices to rise since the sound of the hooves of their horses is enough clamor, even after a grand amount of distance has been made, it’s not until they pass Dauper Village that Sasha calls back in answer.

“To Commander Erwin Smith’s estate! If anyone else should know of this aside the Queen, it should be him!”

Riko mumbles, a  _I knew to it_  to herself before speaking again.

“Are you so sure of that? Are you sure Her Majesty condones that?”

Sasha is shaking her head.

She’s scared.

They’re all-

“He’s the only one else who knows. What they are… what-” Sasha glances back to Connie, who turns to look back at her on feeling her gaze, Sasha gulps “-what we really are.”

\--

It’s a late hour, and typically Historia would be dressed for bed by now, maybe having a late night snack with Ymir who’d roast some corn or mango over the fire.

But she’s still dressed regally, in draping satin and thread of gold and blue. Her hair even still done up in its long trailing braid. At the table is some berry tea for her and a bit of wine for her visitor.

“General Pixis.”

Pixis looks over to her. She knew he’d prefer whisky. But he always has his own.

He’s seated as she has bid him to, and while she should join him she cannot bring herself to sit. Anxious, she paces before her hearth. Holding the letter an exhausted Pan had brought her. Ymir is tending to the hawk now.

“What is it you would like to ask of me my Queen?”

“Right now, my knight Sasha is with your lieutenant, Ms Brzenska. They are heading to Commander Erwin’s estate after finding a disturbance in the deeper Dauper Woods.”

Pixis doesn’t look surprised at any of this information, nor that Historia knows it. She is his Queen.

“What I must ask of you-”

Pixis nods.

“-is if Erwin Smith can be trusted?”

Historia nods.

Pixis looks amused, momentarily, before reaching into the pocket of his jacket, taking out the flask of whiskey, he drinks.

Putting it away.

“Your Majesty.”

Historia looks up to him, eyes almost cold and dissecting.

What he has to say next.

“While it may look by some of his actions that Commander Erwin Smith is going behind your back and keeping you in the dark, what I know of the matter is it is still for your sake. He worked hard to put you on the throne you sit upon now, he by no means intends to take you off it.”

“Are you absolutely sure?”

“What makes you think these thoughts?”

Historia folds the letter away.

“I was put here by convenience. He joined my cause because it was all that could be done at the time. But was it for the best? He put me here, so he can take me from here, just as easily.”

Pixis thinks this over. Historia has trust in him, as one who has served her family for generations, but he knows only that trust goes so far. Their Queen is just, and the people love her, but yes- under different circumstance, a different time, should she show to anyone else the other side of her face as she is allowing him to glimpse it now- perhaps they would not.

Perhaps because she knows of this likeliness she has with the Commander she is wary of him.

“I do not think that is the case. If you think the climb was easy, who can say the fall will be more so? You won’t know unless it occurs and since you’re asking my opinion, I don’t think it will happen. Not by Commander Erwin’s hand at the very least. He is your ally through and through, even if his allegiance was formed by convenience, it’s a damn strong convenience.”

Historia had resumed pacing, and ceases again.

Her gaze piercing, commanding.

Pixis says what she’s brought him here for, not only to investigate his relation to Commander Erwin but to test him as well.

“You Majesty, even if a day comes where Commander Erwin would drag you from the throne he sacrificed so many for you to sit upon. I would oppose him with all my might. That’s what you’re supposed to do for a woman, and a devastatingly beautiful one at that.”

Historia does not sit with him, but leans against her desk.

A hand over Sasha’s letter.

“Very well,” she takes a breath, before turning to look over to the door. Straitening her pose. She settles upon her feet, hands clasped before her.

“Ymir!”

Ymir had been waiting at the door, having completed getting Pan water and a place to rest, along with checking and treating injuries she’d well know about having experiencing them herself before. When she still had wings.

Historia’s look leaves no room for argument.

“I would like for you to take a message to Commander Erwin and to bring back Sasha to us. Battle plans must be made immediately.”

Ymir looks at her in almost alarm, before nodding, saluting.

Historia does not turn her head, but her gaze flickers over.

“Ready your soldiers as well General Pixis. You are excused. I thank you for your counsel.”

General Pixis rises, and nods, bowing at the door before he departs. A salute made as well.

Ymir has a hand at her hip after he’s left. She changed into her armor after she’d seen to Sasha’s hawk. She looks at her Queen, a frown on her face.

“Krista… no… Historia… this is…”

Historia nods, expression heavy and grieving- “That’s right, a war is about to break out!”


	11. Chapter 11

They’d sent a hawk far ahead to give word of their soon arrival and it is Hanji who runs to them, hair messy and her glasses askew. She waves to them and lets out a holler with her bustling motion.

On seeing Levi.

“Levi Levi LEVI LEVI-”

Then on seeing Eren.

“-Eren Eren EREN EREN!”

Hanji skids to a fault before them, eyes darting between the two as they demount from their horse, she gives Eren a big hug but not Levi as he threatens to kick her if she dare comes near him. Hanji hones in immediately on the two figures beside them who demount from their horse as well.

She is on the verge of tears, overjoyed.

“Oh! Most beautiful mermaid princess! Who is it here that you have brought? Your brave mermaid knight and a mermaid lady in waiting?”

Eren looks more than a little horrified at Hanji’s words, aware with them that she has read the letter they’d sent to Erwin.

“Ms Hanji! Please! If you would not give my friends weird nicknames too!”

Mikasa looks dispassionately from Eren and Hanji, as Levi nurses what might be a migraine aside Eren.

Armin interjects, greeting Hanji- “Um, Miss?” Armin seems a little surprised at this thinking Hanji to be male, but then he’s not room to talk- “I’m a boy so I can’t be a lady…”

Armin knows with certainty that when Hanji said ‘knight’ she meant Mikasa. He’s aware of these titles from the stories and lore of humans he’d heard of from his grandfather. 

Hanji is snickering behind her hand.

“Well, I suppose that to be so, how about a wizard then! A… merboy wizard! Well that’s a bit redundant isn’t it?”

“This whole conversation is redundant. Let’s hurry to the mansion already-” is what Levi is saying but Eren is still annoyed with Hanji at her giving nicknames to his friends.

“No! Ms Hanji! No more nicknames! They are not nameless individuals! As it was written in the letter, this is Mikasa Ackerman my sister and Armin Arlert my best friend! Please remember their names properly, names are not to be taken lightly in the Superior Sea!” 

And before Levi can get after Eren for speaking over him… and to remind him this is not the sea, Hanji is crowing with glee, barely able to contain it before. On hearing more about their colony, the workings.

“Why is that? Why is that? Because there’s no kings or queens? No titles to be given so the importance of the name is really exalted? Oh! I want to hear more about that but first-” she turns her attention back to Mikasa and Armin, before patting their horse and leading it by the reins. As Levi leads the horse he’d shared with Eren on their way back home, Eren lending his horse to Mikasa and Armin. Mikasa who was more than a little disgruntled that it was not her and Eren that’d be sharing a horse…

As they draw nearer to the mansion, veering towards the stables before Hanji had come at them at top speed (even using the 3D gear she’s wearing, tinkering with it before their arrival trying to calm her nerves that not one mermaid was going to be in her sight but four!) Erwin comes out to greet them.

“I’m glad to see you are both well. There is much to discuss.”

Levi glances to Eren who’s still looking over at his friends, caught in Hanji's clutches though Armin doesn’t seem to mind, talking a mile a minute to answer all her probing sometimes too personal questions without so much as batting a lash. He… Eren might be alright with leaving alone but while to other’s Mikasa’s expression hasn’t changed, he knows when she’s wanting to be saved. It’s very rare.

“Go, Eren.”

Eren turns to Levi.

“Go to your friends. I will go talk with Erwin. I will return to you as soon as I can to help you unload the luggage.”

There are many wedding gifts and souvenirs they’d acquired.

Eren nods to Levi as Levi passes him the reins to his horse. Levi pats his horse, telling Eren to take care of her. Eren gives a thoughtful hmm at that, did the Corporal really think he wouldn’t? All because he’d made that joke before they’d made it to the mountains… about how nice Levi is to his horse even more so than he is to Eren… before hurrying to his friends. To save Mikasa by having her help him unload everything. She’s relieved to be away from information seeking, honing, talkative Hanji who’s now thrown an arm over Armin’s shoulders. Armin who’s asking her many questions too, some far more complex than what she’s used to. It seems they might be kindred spirits…

Levi is following Erwin back to the mansion.

Erwin telling him.

“It was not only your hawk that delivered a message to us, but a pigeon as well.”

“From the capitol?”

“Yes, the Queen. It was not only addressed to us either.”

\--

In the meeting room near Erwin’s study.

Levi enters with Erwin to see that there are other guests that had arrived before him.

Most recognizable is the girl in armor, her hair done up in a ponytail, messily chomping away at the plate of potatoes in front of her as if she’d not eaten in weeks. She is Queen Historia’s second knight, Sasha Blouse. There’s another plate of potatoes (sausage included), soon pushed towards her, looking untouched, not at all eaten at. From the unknown, bald boy aside her, standing on seeing Erwin. Erwin nods to him and he takes off. His name is Connie Springer, Erwin had explained on the way. Another of Eren’s friends. Erwin had gone to confirm it was indeed Eren and co who had returned before allowing Connie to leave the meeting they’re to resume with Levi present. Connie dashes off, at amazing speed, to go meet his friends.

Mike is also present as usual. Seated across from him is a woman with pale silver hair and glasses she pushes up her face. Levi does not know her name but from the emblem on her uniform she’s one of General Pixis’s.

Erwin takes his seat at the head of the table. 

Levi at his left, Sasha at his right. An empty space by both Sasha and Levi. The seat aside Levi that Eren should be at, the seat that’s empty aside Sasha where Connie had been. Mike and that woman, Riko, both make no move to fill these empty seats seeing no need.

Erwin resumes the meeting. 

Clearing his throat.

They go over what Sasha had seen, what Riko had seen, as had been what Connie had seen. They’d sent that information to the Queen, and Historia had sent them all the following letter, knowing them to be, or some soon to be, at Erwin’s estate.

Erwin presents the letter.

It is a declaration of war, a call to arms, but it is not only that. It is asking for the support of the militia that had fought by the Queen’s side in the revolution. She is calling upon the heroes of the militia to fight alongside her once more with her royal army, to protect the kingdom… the people… from this monstrosity that threatens their peace.

At her behest, she asks of these heroes: Commander Erwin Smith, Corporal Levi Yeager, Mike Zacharias, Erd Jin, Guther Schultz, Petra Ral, Auruo Bozado…

A few other names of their comrades.

Then.

Not listed as a hero but as a special case.

It feels the breath all knocked out of him. Horror, rage, desolation all at a moment’s glance-

“What is the meaning of this Erwin?”

Levi cuts straight to the point.

Tapping upon the name that should not be there.

Eren Yeager.

Is listed.

All listed have been asked to become part of a “Holy Brigade”.

Queen Historia would knight each and every one of them that heeds her call to fight.

If Historia has listed Eren to become a knight… to fight, then she must know of his abilities. She must know that he is a descendant of the super human project, but how? Did Connie know and tell Sasha who told the Queen or-

“We’ve suspected for a while now.”

Sasha speaks up and Levi turns his murderous glare upon her.

She looks up from her half eaten meal, expression serious, despite that bit of potato at the side of her mouth she doesn’t seem to notice is hanging there.

“Oh? What is it you’ve all been suspecting? Potato woman?”

Sasha flares up on being called such, rising to her feet. Her armor clinks with her motion. Levi following suit. They stare each other down. Sasha is shaking, but it is not from hunger. Her voice also gives away her fear, and yet she speaks.

“You have been hiding it from us. The truth. That Eren Yeager is a merperson… that merpeople exist… that there are people besides that of the Dauper Village who are descendants of the Super Human Project! Am I wrong? Corporal Levi.”

Erwin suspects, confronted like this, for Levi to lie.

But.

“That’s right. It’s exactly as you say, Eren… came from the sea… he is not human. So what of it? How does your Queen know this?”

It’d been fear before, and it’s still there, laced in her fury, as Sasha brings a hand to the hilt of her sword. Riko has darted over across the empty seat between them to try to halt her from drawing her sword, because then all would go straight to hell. These negotiations.

“How dare you speak in such a manner! She is this land’s queen! The Queen! Our Queen! Such impudence, I’m quite s-sick of it! I could have your head for treason this moment!”

Levi doesn’t seem much interested in her anger, however.

“The look in your eyes ain’t half bad, I’d like to see you try-”

“Levi. Lady Blouse. If you will.”

Erwin cuts through their conversation. 

He has put before him, before all of them, the diary Levi had gave Hanji to read. In case it held something to riddle out how this had all started…

Sasha stills completely on seeing it.

“No way… how do you… have such a thing? I hid it… in the forbidden woods, that cursed place… within that which only the gods may enter…”

“Eren found it.”

Levi tells her. 

Sasha plops back down into her seat and Levi takes his seat as well, looking at Erwin.

“I’m amazed you were able to wrangle this out of Hanji’s grasp. You never cease to amaze me.”

“The same could be said to you,” Erwin replies, pondering why Levi had not bothered to lie to Sasha; but the truth being said wasn’t a bad move either, though it’d brought him to this.

“I’d suspected after reading this that another part was to be had but missing. So there are two books… two records of these experiments, Lady Blouse?”

Sasha is nodding, there had also once been files… and hearsay that Krista already knows, having been told what Ymir knew, what Sasha knew as a person of Dauper Village. Files that which they’d burned in the abandoned facility they’d stayed in while hiding from the old rule. But she’d kept these diaries from Krista… from the Queen Historia, concerned of what worries it’d bring the soon to be Queen, the ruler of this once cruel world. She’d thought of burning the diaries too. But she hadn’t been able to give them up. For they hold it, the truth of the origin of her ancestors. And so she had thought it would be safe to split the parts. She’d hid one of the diaries in the shrine, and then had kept one upon her person… until recently… when she’d given it to Queen Historia.

Historia must have read it and pieced together as Sasha had when she’d gone back to her village, to see the catastrophe that was brewing, that she’d seen the name Yeager before. Written in that diary, but also, because Historia would be overlooking the ceremony for Levi and Eren’s marriage… that those names, that surname be the same…

“Queen Historia has the other part doesn’t she?” Erwin asks.

Sasha nods.

“I gave it to her. I’d hidden it for so long. I never thought war would be upon this land again. I thought it would help.”

Levi has crossed a leg over another, his arms folded, as he almost scoffs at her.

“I’m not the only one hiding the truth from the Queen then are I? Miss Knight, you could be held for treason too then.”

Sasha turns red at this comment, her own guilt imminent. She resumes eating her potatoes, presently very cold.

Riko has been silent this whole while. Thinking. She still holds her tongue, for now. Ready to intervene should Sasha think it wise to play her role of knight to a t.

But soon almost all in this room would be knights… wouldn’t they?

This is an interesting move by Queen Historia. Seen as a kind and just ruler, warm and gentle, ready to care for any of her citizens and protect them. But the face that the public knows and the face that they, the royal army knows being close to her, and her knights ever closer was all that but also more. If she need be she could be resolute, and merciless, to protect that which she must. It is how she won the war, how she obtained the throne that was rightfully hers, how she was determined that no matter the person, should they need her help, she would be able to help them. But to do that, you must be powerful, and akin to a god, a goddess. She understands how crucial it is to control information and has been doing just that… at a high cost.

The militia who’d done her dirty work… she’d kept them at an arm’s length, unsure of having too many too close to her, but time and time again they’d proven their loyalty to her… but despite that she calls to test it again, this loyalty. And this time the reward to passing such a test was that which she’d been so hesitant to present to anyone. Ymir and Sasha her exceptions. Knighthood.

It is a high honour, and Riko can tell that the Queen wants to settle this once and for all.

The world she desires… if this could be the last time that war ever assails them…

“I will not allow it.”

Is what Levi is telling Erwin.

His eyes are steel as is the resilience of his tone of voice. He will not budge on this matter.

“A decree by the Queen, a decree by the gods- it doesn’t matter what the hell it is. _I will not allow Eren to put himself in danger._ He’s already done enough of that already. We don’t need him… or any of those children to fight. War is abhorrent to their species. They are not weak but they will not survive this. Do you understand Erwin? I’m not going to allow Eren again… to risk his life on such stupidity…”

Riko has held her tongue long enough.

“Stupidity? The whole kingdom, the survival of humankind is at stake. If these so called superhumans are as strong as the Queen thinks they to be, why can’t they fight alongside us? It may save even more of our soldiers and citizens then had we allowed them to abstain from battle. You would risk the lives of our fellows for worry over a few beasts-”

Cold.

It’s suddenly so cold.

Riko is taken aback, by the sweat that starts at her neck, her palms. She’d always heard Corporal Levi a difficult person to deal with but this-

“You’d done well not to speak all this while if you are such an idiot. Why don’t you go back to that and keep your mouth shut?”

She will die.

He would kill her if it’d be only the two of them in this room.

“True. If they enter the battlefield, more lives may be saved and it will bring us the time that we always need. But at what cost? They aren’t human. Why should they fight their brethren? None of them are human anymore because of what our fuckhead ancestors did to their ancestors. You think we have any right to ask this of them? To have them lay down their lives when we’ve already taken them again and again for our own benefit. Don’t fuck around.”

Levi turns to Erwin.

Erwin speaks, eyes calculative upon Levi.

“Levi. You’ve changed. I don’t know if it’s for the better.”

Levi’s expression even unreadable to Erwin.

“I don’t know either. I suppose I won’t know until it’s too late. But if it all works out won’t that be fucking fantastic? Erwin. Me and my squad are enough to back Her Majesty’s army, we won’t be needing those children to pay for the sins of our fathers.”

As Levi becomes unreadable to Erwin so does Erwin to Levi.

Within this standoff-

“Is this another thing you won’t know for sure until it’s too late?”

“…that’s right. If I’ll regret it, well, I suppose I’ll be too dead for even that... what am I saying. I choose this. I won’t regret this, Erwin.”

Erwin’s eyes, once near cold as Levi’s voice had been on replying to Riko’s statement, is a faded darkness where there is no temperature.

“I won’t oppose your decision. But are you willing to bet that Eren won’t oppose it either? You should speak to him first, and see if it’s in his will not to fight.”

Levi…

Already knows the answer to that.

The fury is tangible as he rises to his feet once again.

Levi has had enough of words but he does not draw out his sword, not with Mike present aside him. Mike who has not turned at all to face any of them, but is looking, waiting, knowing. Had he not been there Levi would have given clarification to Erwin on his chatter of earlier and late.

Instead he leaves his seat, walking at the pace he typically does, heading for the door.

Erwin is not yet finished.

“Just ask him, Levi. You may not want to but he might want to take this bet.”

Levi slams the door shut on his way out, not another word leaving him.

Riko let’s out the breath she’d been holding.

Turning to Erwin, reminded, since Sasha is still at it on those potatoes. Something she’d like to have in relation. If General Pixis were here he’d have laughed, and offered her that hard drink she’d been so adept at telling him to abstain from. 

“Commander Erwin… I don’t suppose you have… any vodka?”

\--

With winter coming they are assured it is all they have until the snow melts that they can prepare for the battle that is to come.

Since the enemy had fought them before and lost when there’d been the fallen snow, indeed, the enemy can only grow their forces and hide until the cold winds submit to the heat of the blazing sun.

All through autumn, crops are harvested and accounted for, waste cannot be allowed. Queen Historia calls upon the old and the new to aide her in this fight. All throughout the kingdom the able bodied make their way to the capitol to become soldiers, and those who had once fought in the militia, take up their swords again. 

But that is not all. 

The 3D maneuver gear that Hanji had resurfaced is being made in mass, Auruo’s metal shop a busy one as they try to meet the demands of production. All soldiers are to train to use it for it will be a great asset in battle. They work tirelessly to create more, and better the models. Along with create suits of armor that are strong and light enough to be carried by the gear. The soldiers train night and day, tirelessly through all of winter. Honing their skills with sword, guns, and bows. Only the adept are allowed Hanji’s firearms of bombs, knowing that with its use it must be a last resort for the sake of their lives and those around them. So dangerous and fatal is it. But most resources are going into making the gear and training the soldiers… and building the walls.

The Queen Historia has another title given to her- ‘ruler of the walls’. With the help of the 3D gear, they are able to build these walls around and about the towns that are close to the possible area of conflict, the once Dauper Village. They also work to strengthen the walls that protect the capitol in case an invasion is sought directly upon them.

They work through the cold winds, and train with steel and sweat upon the frozen snow. 

Once it melts and flowers bloom, surely then they would be laid siege upon.

And so they will start their counterattack.

\--

It is on such frozen ground, the plentiful fields of Erwin Smith’s estate covered in snow, that many have come to train. They train under Commander Erwin's instruction and even, most rarely, Corporal Levi's.

Levi’s Squad has reassembled, Erd and Guther from their ship on the eastern seas, Petra from her bakery, and while Auruo has been working tirelessly in his metal shop (now with understudies assisting him and being yelled at by him when Hanji was not yelling at him) but they are not present to train at this such place yet, they are still at the capitol with Sasha Blouse who darts between the capitol and here to give lessons on archery. Connie going where she goes, they are the best of friends it appears. But not only them. Sasha and Mikasa have rather hit it off. Though Levi does not wish for Eren to fight, Eren trains for combat, along with Mikasa (and at times Armin when he isn’t holed up in Erwin’s library, Hanji bragging she has an even bigger one at her home and won’t he come see it? Having learnt to read very fast, he is not much with a weapon that requires steel but he has a quick and sharp mind). Mikasa is exceptional. All the strength she had as a merperson in the sea still remains in this form as a human. Her legs and arms are strong, she’s fast and powerful with a blade, even one as heavy as a long sword. She’s been learning swordsmanship from Commander Erwin and is accurate in hits with the bow, even rivaling her teacher who’s determined not to be beat! Though Sasha seems to like the competition.

Compared to her Eren finds he is just average, as Connie feels as well, they’re both quick with a knife but what else?

There isn’t much need for anything else, Levi has said to Eren… Levi who has much more to tell Eren, he has still yet to ask him-

Mikasa stands before Levi on the field.

Decked out in newly fitted armor for the first time. 

They’ve finally found the ideal weight between the armor and the fuel storage of the 3D gear, that relies on its fuel to support the weight of the users of it to fly. As such the old armor that Levi and his squad had used while in the militia years before are either scrapped, melted to make this lighter but still durable armor… or gone with completely for a new set. Levi does not think with the way he uses the gear (and how it can support him of his weight to begin with) his old armor to be much trouble, but he still allows modifications on it, just in case. He’s trying the suit out today, figuring to with all the others who had suited up as well. Mikasa for the first time. Levi is ready to latch the gear on, but Mikasa has approached him. She is without her gear. A red scarf trailing about her, given to her by Eren when she’d complained as he often did, how cold the surface is. He’d been able to part of it, telling her it’d been a gift but he had been given an even better one before it, his… husband’s mantle…

“Corporal Levi.”

Even though she is not part of the militia she calls him such; ‘Mr’ is a suffix she cannot abide by and name alone will not do, she won't budge on this matter however much she despises him. Why that is- perhaps she would like to call him by his full name but because he carries Eren's surname, 'Yeager'...

She draws her sword and points it at him, not a ready feat to many, given it is a long sword she wields. Heavy and needing of two hands, not the one she extends.

Her expression unchanging but the unwavering, convicted tone of her voice rings sharp like a bell.

“Today I will have you prove to me if you are worthy of being by Eren’s side! Even though Eren has told me time and again that because he has married you, that you are his family and so you are my family as well… that isn’t good enough! I will not acknowledge it! In the Superior Sea, to be family is to protect one another. I have always protected Eren… I shan’t give that right up to you unless you prove it to me! Your strength!”

Children.

Levi has called them that, these people of the sea who’d risen above it to see this world, to reunite with their friends, but can he really continue to call them as such, they who traveled so far here, who have fought to be here, who are indeed strong?

Levi should refuse her this, it would not be well to fight with his sister-in-law.

But still.

He cannot refuse her this.

Not when they see eye to eye on this matter.

“Then, I shall prove it to you if that is your wish, Mikasa Ackerman!”

Levi draws his sword, taking it up in a back handed grip as he typically does, used to wielding two blades but today he has only the one. He holds it before him at the ready as Mikasa draws up her sword before her, truly a proper stance, ready for a duel. So Erwin had taught her then? Levi on seeing such a beautiful, powerful stance, wishes she would learn from him as well. No doubt, like as it’d been thought of Eren, if she had been born into this world and not the sea- then- she would have been- a fine soldier!

That thought resounds in his mind as she tells him- the earth, covered in frost, still breaks from beneath her heavy step- “Prepare yourself!”

Steel sings upon steel.

Bright from the sun, the pure white of fallen snow.

Levi meets her blows with blows just as strong, the earth breaking beneath his feet as well as they face each other off, a dance of violence and careful, measured blood thirst. It is indeed a duel of swords and yet… as many look from a distance, wary to come close, many would agree it is not merely a fight between two knights that is being had, but beasts.

For a time they match each other precisely, neither one ready to let up on the other, but it soon rules in favour of one- Levi’s experience on the battlefield, the armor he wears naturally, the sword another limb- Mikasa is talented and lacks no strength, is also smart and hardworking, however she does not have the scars Levi has-

Once she had thought, had been taught, a golden gaze compelling her, fight, win, live- do whatever you can, do whatever you must- to obtain that. It still resides within her, spurs her and supports her- but the teachings she’d been given of this human world are not as they seem. This world is much like the Superior Sea, and she soon sees that is so though she’d not believed it for all its differences. As Levi wins by one means.

He makes her trip.

He pulls at her scarf and her reaching so it won’t choke her had lost her footing, and falling to the ground, her sword clattering away from her-

“Foul! Cheater! Coward-!”

She spits at him, her indignance breaking when Levi speaks.

“Cowards often get to live don’t they?” 

There is no unkindness in Levi’s words but Mikasa silences on hearing them, at some point in her life… at some point in Levi’s life… they had both had to do that which is ‘cowardly’ to survive. But is that really so wrong? If you ask her if she regrets such a thing then-!

But that’s still something… only the strong can really say isn’t it?

Levi draws his sword away and kneels, offering Mikasa his hand to help her rise to her feet from where she’s fallen, face first upon the ground. More appalled that he grabbed her scarf than even… having lost…

Then a voice they all know well-

“That really was a cowardly move! Levi!”

Mikasa looks up in amazement as he helps her up.

“Eren!”

But Eren is more than a little angry, he scowls at the both of them. He’d seen the whole thing, but Armin had pulled him back from intervening, saying he’d only make it worse.

“If you were going to fight Mikasa you should have fought fair and square! She’s strong!”

Levi doesn’t look the least bit ashamed of his actions.

“Ah? What’s this? Are you saying Mikasa would have won if I’d not done that? Eren.”

Eren is aghast.

“That is not at all sir! I am saying that Mikasa is strong! And as such is a worthy opponent! You could have won without resorting to such means…”

“Hasn’t anyone yet taught you that saying ‘All’s fair in love and war’? That sorta crap…”

Armin is behind Eren and is about to say he’s heard of that one before but Eren is besides himself, annoyed.

“Even so! You should not have done what you did! It’s-”

“What? Frowned upon in that ocean of yours? How many times do I have to tell you brats, this ain’t the sea?”

Before Eren can retort Mikasa has risen to her feet, retrieving her sword.

“No. Corporal Levi is right Eren. Sometimes you have to do dishonourable things to win… to survive. I will acknowledge it then. He’s strong enough to protect you.”

And as Eren gapes at her in shock that Mikasa is… after all this while on bickering with him about how he shouldn’t be with Levi… she gives a small, almost amused 'heh' as she adds-

“For a human.”

And before anything else can be said Levi’s Squad arrives to be fit for the armor and of course, to take part in today's training.

When Hanji hears about what she'd missed she gives up a good deal of disappointed howling before asking if that's why Levi and the rest of his Squad were going out for drinks tonight? To celebrate his win? For defending his word to protect his princess! Levi kicks her _and_ her desk over, still not inviting her to drinks since she'll be busy... reorganising all those papers of the data she'd gotten from Armin's account of the match.

\--

The snow eventually melts and with the blooming flowers is their apprehension.

Will the enemy strike today? 

Tomorrow?

Soon.

That is all they know.

With the warmer weather, it is Eren who suggests a hunt.

Eren still dons Levi’s mantle, forever fond of it, despite the cold of winter having vanished.

They are returning from their hunt, reminiscing of their time in the mountains from their honeymoon when their hunting skills had been praised. Speaking on the gifts they’d received, the food most all eaten by now, clothes stored away for later use, trinkets organized about their room, weapons stored away for another day, various of it all shared with their friends and family.

Passing through the fields of newly planted crop or newly growing crops, berries and other fruit or plants that thrive in the spring. Eren enters one of the flower fields and Levi follows. They leave their horses to graze about the tall grass and sweet blossoms as Eren heads forth, mentioning how these blue flowers look a bit like these anemones in the sea that- he, Mikasa and Armin would visit and play around, especially when they’d been small kids. In a way it’d been a bit like a flower patch…

With the presence of his friends Levi has noticed, Eren has grown happier, smiling more, glad to share what he knows of this world with them, happy to be with them so much that he often leaves the bed they share for that of his kin. Many nights have passed that Levi has missed Eren more than he should for him being so near.

It is this smile so bright that Eren bestows him as they walk amongst the flowers, to beneath the towering shade of the large tree that grows amidst all this, long before these flowers had ever bloomed.

Seeing Eren as such, almost as if he has never before… though it’d been told to him, by Petra, by Hanji, by the others that Eren is the happiest by his side. That Eren himself had confirmed this when he’d accepted the ring on his finger from Levi…

This is still not what Eren truly desires.

Levi has known this, from the bottom of his coveting heart, for some time now, unable to accept it, unable to let Eren go. Eren who had saved him, and Eren whom he wants to cherish until the end of his days.

An end that may be coming soon…

Eren is looking up- into leaves that are green as his mantle, glancing over the slight swaying branches of the tree, dappled through with the fading sunlight, their day spent in the woods will eventually become night.

It is it within these last few vibrant rays of the sun, set on setting that Levi decides.

What he has done- what he should have done- what he will do.

With Eren’s friends here, the war that will soon ravage this land, what Levi must do-

Mikasa had fought a duel with him to prove he has the strength to protect Eren. If he really has that strength, if that strength will really be good enough to carry not only Eren but himself to a brighter tomorrow, with all that he has done, with all that must still be done, Levi cannot consider it-

He is not worthy.

If something were to happen to Eren because even now he continues in his greed, his obsession, this delusion- an illusion. That Eren is his just as he is Eren’s, that he gets to decide as Eren had saved his life, that he will get to decide how Eren dies, how Eren lives- that has always been Eren’s choice. And he had tried to take it for his own, just as he had stolen Eren from the sea… and made him human.

He isn’t human.

He doesn’t belong here.

And he does not belong to Levi.

If he wants to continue living, if he wants to be free then-

Levi cannot keep him here.

“Eren. Give me your hand.”

Eren turns to him, dutifully, warmly, before obediently holding out his hand to give to Levi, as he’d been asked.

Levi takes Eren’s hand.

He removes the ring from Eren’s finger and placing it in his palm, pushes Eren’s fingers beneath his to curl over it, to hold it, to know-

“Return to the sea.”

Eren looks from his enclosed hand to Levi and-

Does not understand.

“What are you saying… Levi? Why would I return to the sea? We live here! On the surface!”

Levi looks upon Eren and before he can regret, with the rising panic in Eren’s voice and gaze-

“Though much has happened in your homeland, I’m sure in the waters you will be safer than if you are to stay here. Believe in me, Eren. I will defeat the enemy without fail. I will save your friends and return them to you.”

Eren looks from Levi to his uncurling fingers, the ring Levi had given him, made of his scales… Armin had said they’d eaten this serum that had turned them into humans, to turn back all they need do is eat a part of themselves that’d not been human, a scale for many of them. That is all it takes to turn them back into that which they were. That which they truly are. Eren could return to the sea, swallowing what remained of his scales, made into rings that Levi had took and turned into a promise, an oath.

Thinking on it like that…

Levi has started to walk away from him, heavy steps he’s unaware of their growing weight as he turns his back on Eren. A grieving back, growing weaker by the second as his deception and acceptance sets to overtake him. He will give up Eren and allow him to return to the sea for his safety. He will bid him farewell in order to keep him alive. Levi will do this, because he is not meant to be here. Had Eren not saved him he’d have been a drowned man, a corpse that of the likes that’d surrounded him throughout most of his life. But what Levi doesn’t know is he’s already drowned, that fate he’s escaped time and time again, this is it.

It is the fate that binds him and Eren together.

That back which had been strong and had supported Eren this whole while, those arms that had carried him through so much. Levi may win every battle, but he may lose his life in pursuit of such victory. That which is right. That which that is yet to come. It is not like his Corporal to be so weak, it is not like his husband to regret, and it is not a Levi that Eren knows that is walking away from him. One who will give him up, one who will not hold him, one who says that Eren does not truly belong with him, because-

“You are forgetting something very important, Levi.”

Levi continues walking, slowly, burdened.

“I will not allow you to leave.”

It echoes, Eren calling to him, not beseeching, but as he might give an order- Eren’s words are absolute.

“You made a promise to me did you not? For what purpose do I wear your mantle?”

Levi cannot move any further from where he stands on those words, and turning to look back upon Eren, his Eren- he sees-

The deep of green and blue, flickering into gold more beautiful than any coveted treasure on this earth, in the sea, above in the clouds where gods may still exist, it exalts him and holds him and reminds him to remain steadfast, that-

“I will die if you are not by my side, and you will die if I am not by yours.”

He watches as Eren holds his ring and slips it over his finger where it had been before, where it belongs.

Where Eren belongs-

The sun has set and the stars are out, moonlight floods his vision once more. But it is not the night sky that causes such a sight. It is Eren. While he still has not yet thought of a song that will be worthy to be the song of reunion he does have this, this song that he had sung to Levi once before, in that sheltered bay as Levi had mused and prompted, could Eren sing?

It is a song that had slipped him into madness, the one the tales tell of.

Though Eren is without his tail the song has not lost its potency and Eren’s voice is still beautiful, even more so as it reaches Levi, this love song he has only sung once before. Preferring to sing to Levi lullabies to calm the terrors of the night, snatches of celebratory song as they weaved through the streets, are wed, error and trials, forbidden, not allowed, not like this- that is too painful- devastatingly- it rises within him, a haunt in the marrow of his bones, his hot blood as it scorches through and leaves nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing-

Nothing but Eren.

And he.

Levi returns to him, unable to resist him, the last notes of Eren’s love song taken and stolen from his lips as Levi covers his mouth over Eren’s kissing him harshly, clutching onto him. He pushes him against the hard trunk of the tree, grinding his own hardness against Eren, his belly, his crotch. Finding Eren growing hard as well as he continues to bite at his lips, sucking at his tongue. Levi swallows every gasp and moan that are just as lovely as the song of earlier.

Eren is lovely.

His flushed face, his dark hair against the not as dark bark of the tree, his hands fisting, tugging on Levi’s shirt, at the arms as Levi holds him to him, unable to let go. Burning, hungry, dying. Before Eren had denied him his mouth but now he opens it up to him, hot and more than inviting. Levi feels Eren wrap his legs (another that which he could not have done before) around his hips and holding him, his hands moving, his arms about Levi’s torso and bringing him closer, clinging to him- as he gasps and cries as Levi leaves marks down his neck. Looking at Eren’s red and swollen lips, from there Eren had seduced him, sung to him, said he wants him, needs him-

Levi pulls back to unclasp his mantle at Eren's throat, both going down with it, to lie upon it. Lying Eren down on his mantle, Levi removes Eren’s clothes, looking over his body, his heaving chest, his clenched stomach, his wide hips, the tops of his thighs beneath him, his legs- Levi undoes his belt, the ties to his trousers. Eren reaching for him as he pulls his hard cock out. Eren tries to rise, wanting to put Levi inside his mouth, knowing Levi would like that- but Levi pushes him back, more than that, right now, Levi would like to be inside of Eren and feel everything while hearing everything- just this last time-

He tries to flip Eren around but Eren will not relent, wanting Levi to not take him from behind but to allow him to hold him, face to face, Levi can kiss him like this can’t he? He always wants a kiss doesn't he? Levi kisses Eren again as he enters him, groaning, not sated even as he moves roughly, Eren grinding, gyrating his hips up to meet Levi’s violent thrusts.

Eren holds him in his arms, his fingers in his hair, urging him with every pleasured and pained sigh and whimper, every sound Eren makes like song to him, everything Eren does pleasing to him, no matter where he looks of Eren’s body-

As Levi fully fits himself inside Eren, Eren kisses at his brow, tender and warm then elated and almost proud- as he looks from between their joined bodies to Levi’s face, Levi’s eyes shut in pleasure, his brow furrowed- as he moves, thrusts into Eren again, again again again again- grunting- moaning- Eren kisses his mouth, forcing him to look too at where they connect as he draws their hands together, intertwining the fingers- not content that for Levi to think this is a dream he will wake up from, when it is reality, the truth-

Eren’s voice.

“ _Look at me_.”

And Levi looks at Eren.

He cums thickly and hotly inside him.

Eren cumming as well.

Levi looks down upon Eren, their mingling sweat, their touching, spent flesh, some of his sweat drips from his face onto Eren’s who makes no move or motion, no indication of it falling to him. Only his eyes boring into Levi’s, radiant and captivated. The dark leaves of the branches on the trees swaying in the breeze still even against the night sky, the stars bright as the moon.

He cups Levi’s face, holding his head between his hands as if Levi is his greatest treasure, as if there is nothing else that Eren wants, cherishes, has- and that is the truth as well.

“Have you come to your senses sir? You see it? You feel it? That this is where you belong and so this is where I belong. Though the sea was once my home, my home is where you are. I cannot be where you are not. Have I not told you of this before? Because you must have told me, a thousand times already. Or do you claim to be a liar?”

Levi clutches Eren to him, pressing himself deeper inside him though he is spent. Kissing away Eren’s tears, then his mouth. Eren’s voice had cracked on that last question. The heartbreak he’d felt earlier, when Levi had taken off his ring-

“I am a thief. And much not like a human in a way you won’t understand. But I am no liar. Forgive me, Eren. I was going to make you wait for me for the rest of all time.”

Eren’s fingers are in his hair again, as Levi presses his mouth to Eren’s neck, kissing the bite marks he’d left. Eren shifts beneath his heavy, bearing weight, short of breath and sore, but-

Eren smiles, though a little sadly for-

“I will not wait any longer. I’m very sorry sir. I cannot abide your orders. I will not return to the sea.”

-that sadness dissipates, as Eren leans up to kiss him.

Drawing back.

“It cannot be done. For I will not return you this mantle. Levi.”

Levi presses their brows together, looking at their joined hands.

Looking at Eren, who is his.

“Do as you like, Eren.”


End file.
